Bacup Holy Trinity Stacksteads C.E. Primary School

HOLY TRINITY BLOG

Autumn 2

KS2 Christingle Service

We're sure that those parents who came to watch the KS2 Christingle Services will agree that the children did a fantastic job of telling the Christmas story through songs and readings. Well done to everyone! If you weren't able to come, have a look at the pictures below.

Year 4 Trip to Blackburn Cathedral

Last Thursday, a group of Year 4 children enjoyed taking part in an Advent trail at Blackburn Cathedral.  They also performed short drama workshop, explored the church and understood where the shape of a church comes from.  Thank you to the Education Team at the Cathedral for a fantastic morning.  Children were commended on their conduct and were welcomed back to visit next time they might be shopping in Blackburn!  Well done children.

Elf Day

Children had a fantastic time being extra busy elves last Friday.  Elf activities included maths challenges, reading puzzles and Mental 'Elf activities.  Thank you for your support in making the day a success.

School Christmas Fair 2024

Children have been working hard to prepare lots of fun, games and tasty treats for our Annual Christmas Fair and School Enterprise.   Classes have chosen an item to design, make and sell including making posters and checking costs.  Alongside all the enterprise stalls are our tombola, raffle with fantastic prizes, traditional games and, of course, the Big Man himself....shhhh!  Find out if you're on the good list, sit with a hot drink and enjoy our advent scenes in the hall.  See you there!

Year 1/2 Enterprise

Year 1/2 thought very hard about what to do for the Christmas Fair and their favourite thing is baubles so we made our own edible baubles! The children worked carefully and thought hard about their designs and they made some beautiful baubles!

Year 1/2 Sandwich making!

Year 1/2 have been working really hard over the last few weeks in our literacy unit based on instructions. The children have been ordering and writing instructions to explain how to make a sandwich and for our last lesson, we used our instructions to make our very own sandwiches. They all looked fantastic and the children really enjoyed them!

Year 6 - Trip to the Imperial War Museum

As part of our History topic based on World War 2, year 6 have visited the war museum in Manchester where they got to experience first-hand recounts of the war.

Year 2

Year 2 have enjoyed their first Craft Club session. We made some spinning windmills and some created some firework pictures using chalk!

Year 2

Year 2 were visited by the fire service. They taught us all about how to stay safe in a fire. We practised how to stop drop and roll and did some role play of what to do if there was a fire in our home.

Year 5- Computing

Year 5 have been learning about encrypted messages this week in Computing. We have been learning about semaphore and using the flags to transmit messages to one another. We had lots of fun challenging our friends to crack our codes. 

Autumn 1

Class 2F enjoyed their art unit learning to draw and paint in the style of LS Lowry. 

Year 1- 

Year 1 have really enjoyed our Art unit this term. We have created our own drawings and paintings in the style of Kandinsky's work. 

Year 5 and 6 - Olympic gymnast

Today we have been lucky enough to talk to Max Whitlock about his Olympic journey. Max talked to us about the importance of sport, how he got into gymnastics and who inspired him. 

Year 6 Art 

We have been exploring the art work of Claude Monet. We have sketched landscape ideas and then created a painting from our sketch using his impressionist style. The short, quick brush strokes helped to create movement within the pictures.

Year 1/2 Art

 In Art this half term we have looked at the work of Kandinsky. We investigated how he overlaps 2D shapes to create abstract art and used lots of techniques to recreate his work. The children did a brilliant job!

Year 1/2 Geography Walk 

Year 1/2 went for a walk around Stacksteads as part of our Geography unit. We searched for human and physical features within our local area and thought about why things may be placed in certain areas. We had a wonderful time!

Year 5 Bikeability

This week GoVelo have been in school to deliver Bikeability sessions. We have been working towards getting our Level 1 and 2 certificates. We have learnt to start and stop with more confidence, pass stationary vehicles as well as understanding and negotiation the road whilst cycling.  

Year 4 Speed Stacking Club

This evening was our final speed stacking session.  Children have developed fantastic speed and dexterity with both hands at this club.  They have had great fun trying to 'upstack' and 'downstack' in different formations over the last few weeks and achieved personal best times for 3-6-3 stacks, 6-6 stacks and 10-1-1 stacks.  Well done to all club members.

MacMillan Coffee Afternoon

Thank you to everyone who attended our Coffee Afternoon, we raised £150!! 

Year 4 Fieldwork Afternoon

 Year 4 had a super afternoon doing Geography and Science Fieldwork. In Geography we learned how to orientate our Ordnance Survey map and identify features we could see. We talked about why there were more houses and buildings in the valley and why there weren't many trees on the hills. In Science we did a local habitat search for living things in our local environment. We described and drew lots of different things including fungi, lichen, different birds and deciduous and evergreen trees.

MacMillan Coffee Afternoon

We are hosting a Macmillan Coffee Afternoon on Friday 27th September at 2:30pm.  

Tickets are just £2 and entitle you to a drink and a piece of cake.  Other cakes will be available to purchase for ony 50p.

All proceeds will go to MacMillan Cancer Support.

We really hope you can join us on Friday 27th September. 

Year 4 Trip to Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Year 4's class page has been updated to include photographs and a short report of our trip. See the Year 4 class page for all the photographs...here's a sneaky peak!

Year 6 Community Clean-up

To promote community cohesion and civic pride, year 6 have been out in the community cleaning up. They have been around Western Park, Holy Trinity Church, Tunstead pre-school, Rosemount and The Rose 'n' Bowl car park. They have been impressed with the difference they have made. Well done Year 6!

Year 1 Library Trip

As part of our Cultural Capital topic of our local environment, a group of our Year 1 children went on the minibus for a trip to Rawtenstall Library. We were lucky enough to have a tour of the library to see what different things the library had to offer, we listened to some stories and took part in a character quiz- which the children were brilliant at! We had a fantastic morning and the children has a super time!

Year 1 Art

Year 1 have been learning about 3D Art. We have been inspired by the work of Brett Kern who is a sculpture artist. Using clay and the clay tools, the children created their own 3D dinosaur. They used the clay tools and 3D knowledge to model their own body parts and tried to make their work as smooth as possible, just like Brett Kerns. What a fabulous job they did!

Year 3 Maths

Year 3 are learning how to tell the  time to the minute and how to read a digital clock!  When you are at home, see if they can tell you the time on your clocks.  

YEAR 4 MOSQUE ENRICHMENT VISIT

Year 4 visited a mosque in Accrington today.  See the Year 4 page for photos and details of the activities.  All the children enjoyed their visit and linking it to their RE studies about Islam.

Marathon Man!

Huge congratulations to Mr Stanton who ran the Manchester marathon a few weeks ago. 

Many thanks to staff and parents who sponsored him. 

Year 2 visit to Rawtenstall Library

The year 2 children in Mrs Farina's class enjoyed a visit to Rawtenstall Library this week. They learnt about the library, listened to stories and were able to share some of their favourite books with each other. 

Year 5 visit to the National Basketball Performance Centre

A group of Year 5 pupils visited the National Basketball Performance Centre recently as part of our cultural capital sporting excellence focus. We watched a close match between the Manchester Giants women and the Durham Palatinates women, and then watched the Manchester Giants men warm up. We even got photos with some of the players!

Year 6 visit to St Peter's for end of Eid celebrations

A group of year 6 pupils visited St Peter's Burnley as part of our school link. They were treated to a lesson about Eid and the history of the celebration. They sampled 'break fast' food and learned how to Bollywood dance.

Easter at Holy Trinity

Year 1 at Easter

Year 1 have loved learning about and celebrating Easter. We listened to the Easter story and discussed it together and even acted it out as a class! Then we had a brilliant Easter craft afternoon where we created some Easter cards for our families and the children made some wonderful Easter bonnets. On the last day of the term we were extremely lucky and the Easter Bunny came to visit us! He handed out lots of high fives and did some funny dances for us and we ended the week with an Easter egg hunt where the children succeeded marvelously in finding all of the eggs in record time!

Decorated Egg Competition.

A huge thank you to everyone who entered!  All the entries were amazing and lots of imagination and care went into these designs.  Well done! 

Also, thank you to the parents and carers who entered, what a tricky job our judge had, to decide on a winner! 

Year 1 Multicultural Day

Year 1 have had a brilliant time celebrating Brazil for Multicultural Day. We enjoyed packing our suitcases and boarding our long flight to Brazil! When we got there we learnt some common words and phrases as well as how to Samba dance- the children loved this! We created some fact files about the Amazon rainforest to teach others all about it and used lots of kindly donated junk to create some of Brazil's most famous landmarks. We even had time to bake some queijadinha- a sweet coconut Brazilian treat! We have enjoyed spending the day learning all about a different culture and gained lots of new knowledge!

New Recruits for Year 4

Pom-pom club made some new mascots!  Great skills and good fun.  Well done, pom-pom-ers!

Year 5 Cultural Capital Visit

Year 5’s cultural capital learning this year is focused on ‘sporting excellence’. As part of this, Mrs Say, Mr Morris and ten Year 5 pupils visited Blackburn Ice Arena to watch Blackburn Hawks play Nottingham Lions. We got to meet one of the players, Charles Philips, before the game and asked him lots of questions. We also got to fist-bump the players at the start and end of the game and they even autographed some player cards for us. The best bit was the score – Blackburn Hawks won 7-1! We’d like to thank Shelley at Blackburn Hawks for helping to arrange such a fantastic experience. We’re hoping to arrange a date for one of the players to visit school in the near future.

Year 2-

Year 2 have been researching animal facts using Kiddle to create their own presentation. We have learnt so many new things!

Our Reading sheds

Thanks to the fundraising efforts of the school community, the PTFA were able to purchase reading sheds for our playground. Take a look at these in action...

Y4 After-School Interest Club - Making Pom Poms!

This half-term, Year 4 are making pom-poms!  Check back here at the end of term to see their finished creations.

Year 4 Design & Technology

Year 4 have been making, designing and evaluating. They have made an automatic nightlight using microbits and circuits. 

Year 5 Art

 Year 5 have been making sculptures in the style of Swiss artist and sculptor Alberto Giacometti. We  drew our designs, and then used wire to make the shape, covering it with air-drying clay. Finally we painted it with metallic paint. 

Thinking Day 2024

Children who are part of the local Scout and Girl Guides were allowed to attend school in their uniforms today to mark World Thinking Day, where they give thanks and appreciation for international friendships within the movement. 

Year 2

The children had a brilliant time during their Music lessons learning about how music has been played over the years. We looked at records, tapes and CDs. 

Valentine's Hampers.

Thank you to all who entered the hamper raffle.-you helped to raise a fantastic £195!

The winners collected their prizes on Friday 9th February. I hope they enjoyed them over the half term.  

The PTFA have purchased  a YOTO player (children's audiobook player) and several audiobook cards for the children to share and enjoy, as well as a suggestions box for future book purchases.

Year 1- Safer Internet Day 

This afternoon we celebrated Safer Internet Day. The children learnt about being safe on the internet and why this is so important. They listened carefully to some situations that they could find themselves in and created solutions to the problem and thought of ways we can keep safe whilst still having fun on the internet. The children then created some posters to tell others how to keep safe and finished the afternoon by receiving certificates for their brilliant learning!

Year 3 Number Day!

Year 3 have been playing dice games and joining in with the NSPCC TT Rockstars competition!  

Number Day- Year 1 

Year 1 have been celebrating Number Day! The children have been on a math's carousel and experimented in playing maths games on the chromebooks, working out calculations to create some colourful drawings, using the wipe boards to complete some quizzes and trying out Miss Fogarty's new math's games! 

Number Day - Year 6

Year 6 have been celebrating Number Day! They have been creating their own maths themed board games, playing maths strategy games, and taking part in the whole school TTRockstars competition.

1F- Making Fruit Kebabs 

In our DT unit this half term, the children learnt all about healthy snacks and how healthy foods help our body and why fruit is so important to eat. We designed and planned making our own healthy snack- a fruit kebab. After some planning and learning all about the importance of safety and hygiene whilst handling food, the children worked superbly to create their very own fruit kebabs! They showed great patience and perseverance whilst cutting their own fruits and produced some delicious fruit kebabs!

Year 2H

During our Geography unit the children spent some time looking at the topography of our local area. We went outside onto our playground to look at some of the high ground surrounding our school.

2H

We have loved making things for the Christmas fair today.  The children took great care over making their very own gift tags!

Christingle Service 2023

Children from Year 1 up to Year 6 walked to church for our Christingle service.  The singing from the children was fantastic and well done to the year 6s who read us the Nativity story. We hope you all enjoyed your Christingles! 

Elf Day 2023

The children enjoyed our annual ELF DAY on Friday, they all looked amazing!  They enjoyed a range of Elf activities and a delicious hot chocolate!

Wildlife Rangers

 The Wildlife Rangers were out and about in the forest this week.  They were finding a suitable place for the new Hedgehog House.  Here they are in action!

Year 1 Visit from Rev Janet

On Tuesday we were lucky enough to be visited by Reverend Janet who came to teach us the Nativity Story and talk to us about Christmas Traditions at the church. The children loved joining in with the Nativity story and sharing their traditions too!

Year 1 Cricket Session 

Year 1 were lucky enough to be visited by a cricket coach on Friday. They were able to take part in a number of cricket based games using bats and balls. The children had such fun and demonstrated some super listening and teamwork. 

Year 2 Craft Club

This week in craft club year 2 did printing using a poppy design. We put them together to make a display for Remembrance day. 

Whole School

This week, all classes are writing their own prayers and putting them in our prayer net.  They will be based on one of our 6 Core Christian Values and some of them will be read out in our celebration assemblies on Fridays.

Our Core Christian values are:

Courage, perseverance, respect, truthfulness, hope and compassion. 

Year 1 Story and craft club

The children in year 1 have enjoyed story and craft club this term. This week we read the story 'The Leaf Thief' and made leaf rubbings. 

Year 2 Singing Club

The children have enjoyed singing club with Miss Sutcliffe this term. They have learnt lots of songs and especially enjoyed learning 'What I am' by Will.I.AM

Harvest 2023

Thank you to everyone who donated food for our Harvest Service.  It was very much appreciated.  

Year 6 History trip to Bacup Museum

Year 6 had a fantastic trip to Bacup Museum learning about how WW2 affected the local area. 

Year 5 History

We had fun in History learning about the Viking attack on Lindisfarne in AD 793 and re-enacting it in the hall. We hope you aren't scared by the vicious Vikings!

Year 4 Speed Stacking Club

Records tumbled today in Speed Stacking club!  The new school record for the 6-stack was set at 4.58 seconds.  Lots of unique designs for stacks were built including mini cups and metal cups.  It's the final session for the club next week.  Well done children!

Visit to Lancashire County Cricket Club

As part of our cultural capital programme, children from Year 5 recently enjoyed a trip to Lancashire County Cricket Club at Old Trafford. We were treated to a tour of the Players and Media Centre and learned about jobs we could do when we are older if we like talking (commentator, radio presenter, interviewer), like taking photos and video (photographer, camera operator), like writing (journalist) or like maths (score keeper). Next, we did some word and number challenges all about cricket. After lunch we even got to have a game of cricket in the indoor nets that all the famous cricketers use! Mr Stanton’s team were one run behind Mr Morris’s team with one ball to go. Mr Morris bowled … and Mr Stanton hit a six and won the game! We learnt a lot about the world of cricket and want to say a big thank you to the Lancashire County Cricket Foundation for a brilliant day.

Year 3 VR sessions 

Year 3 have enjoyed using the VR headsets to explore Stone Age artefacts and buildings. The children were able to explore the ruins of Avebury Stone Circle as well as a pre-historic hand axe. We are looking forward to using the headsets again soon. 

Nursery

We have been busy learners in our play. Making new friendships and developing our language skills!

We have been drawing and painting self-portraits of ourselves and our friends. We have also been learning about our friends and their families.

We have been listening to our favorite Traditional Tales and repeating words and phrases. 

We have also been listening to environmental and instrumental sounds in phonics and have been on sound walks.

We have been doing dough disco, rolling, squeezing and pinching the dough to work on our fine motor skills. 

In P.E we have been practising hopping on both legs and have been working on our balancing skills!

Reception

In Reception we have been learning about the Colour Monster and have been learning about different emotions that we might feel. 

We have read lots of stories to help us with our feelings including Ravi's roar, Ruby's worries and the rainbow fish. 

In Phonics we have been learning our sounds and have been practising blending these together to read words! 

In Maths we have been learning about patterns using objects, body movement and musical instruments. 

Year 2 History

Over the last few weeks in History we have been learning about The Great Fire of London. The children have learnt about some of the key events that caused The Great Fire and have been able to place these key events in chronological order onto a timeline. We are incredibly proud of all of the children in year 2 with the amount of enthusiasm they have shown towards this topic. Keep it up year 2!

Year 5 Science

In Science this term, we have been learning about forces. We designed an investigation to find out about air resistance. This involved designing and making parachutes which were different sizes. We dropped them from the same height and timed how long they took to reach the floor. We found out that the bigger the parachute, the longer it took to reach the floor and concluded that the bigger surface area created more air resistance.

Year 1 RE

For the past few weeks in our RE lessons, we have been learning about baptisms. We have been thinking about what they are, what they represent and the importance of all those involved in a baptism. The children have worked in groups and put all of their knowledge together to act out their very own baptisms and they showed fantastic teamwork and understanding! The children assigned themselves different roles such as a baby, a priest, godparents and parents and they described the process to the rest of the class with confidence! Absolutely brilliant work, Year 1!

Year 3 Singing Club

Year 3 have been singing 'Songs from the Shows'!  'Just can't wait to be King' form The Lion King is a firm favourite, along with 'One Jump' from Aladdin. This week we have started learning' Any dream will do' from Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.  What fantastic performers they are!  It takes real courage to stand up and sing in front of other people!  Well done! 

Art!

Over the last two weeks the children across school have been developing their art skills during our first Art Unit of the year. There was a drawing focus for this unit for all classes alongside some additional skills such as printing and painting for specific year groups. I have been fortunate enough to see the artwork produced during this unit and talked to children from each year group who eagerly and confidently told me all about their learning and were very keen to show me the work that they had produced- which was all absolutely fantastic! 

Year 1 have been learning about the artist Kandinsky. We have been looking at how Kandinsky drew overlapping, colourful shapes to produce his work. We explored a range of different media such as charcoal, graphite crayons, 4B and 6B pencils,  to see which was most suitable for our own piece. We learnt about printing and rubbings and spent time outside finding different surfaces to create rubbings off as well as using a number of different items to print with! The children practiced hard to draw and overlap shapes to find a technique best suited for them and then used all of this knowledge to create their very own Kandinsky inspired final piece and the results were brilliant! 

Year 2 have been learning all about Lowry. They looked at Lowry's inspiration and analysed the buildings that he drew and thought about how he went about this. They explored lots of different media to understand the thickness of lines that they produced and thought about how this could assist with the different aspects of their own drawings. The children also started to think about paint and the differences between poster and acrylic paint before deciding which would be best for their own design. Then, they used their knowledge to draw their very own Lowry inspired work and they even mixed paints themselves to create the best shade to paint them, and they turned out great! 

In Year 3, the children learnt about the illustrator Maurice Sendak. The children learnt the new terms; hatching, blending and shading and discussed how Sendak used these in his work. The children used different media to create lines, shades and effects and used different types of pencils to add variation in tone. The children then created their own animal sketch and they used their knowledge of the aforementioned terms to apply tones and texture to their work. I was lucky enough to see the children do this myself and what a fantastic job they did!

Year 4 looked at the work of Freda Kahlo. They discussed Freda Kahlo’s techniques of hatching, crosshatching and blending. They used different media to create different lines and effects and determined which types would be most appropriate for recreating the different parts of Kahlo's image. The children then recreated different aspects of Kahlo's work, thinking carefully about the sizes of different facial features and which technique and media is most appropriate. Well done Year 4!

In Year 5, the children learnt about Henri Matisse. The children learnt about the terms composition, scale and proportion and noted how Matisse applied these to his work. The children used viewfinders to look closely at different aspects of this image and used appropriate media to recreate the different aspects of the image. The children demonstrated their artistic understanding greatly across this unit. 

The Year 6 children explored the work of Monet. They discussed the scale and proportion of the foreground, middle-ground and background and following using viewfinders to really understand the detail in Monet's work, they recreated a section of their own. The children used the knowledge they have built through school to produce an aspect of Monet's artwork. They then mixed their own colours to paint their piece. Great work, Year 6!

As you can see, the children have produced absolutely brilliant work over the last two weeks and I am eagerly awaiting our next Art Unit already! Well done everyone, what super work, you should all be very proud of yourselves! Miss Fogarty