Reverend Rebecca talked about our scripture - John 10:10 and how it links to our Church's vision.

Reverend Cathy talked about things that make us excited. We make God excited, the things we do and say.

Rev Kev told us a story about a man called Saul from the Bible who didn't like followers of Jesus. He wasn't very nice to people and he tried to wipe out all Christians.

One day he went on a journey to Damascus to find people and throw them into prison. Whilst he was on his journey, he saw a bright light and heard Jesus' voice.

Saul realised how powerful and life changing Jesus really was and it was on that trip to Damascus that he changed his ways.

He then changed into St Paul who went on to be a very important person in the Bible.

For Mr T's leaving Worship, he had the honours of awarding our Stars of the Week for the very last time!

Here were some of our ideas:

Exercise

Believing in God

Going to the gym

Believing in yourself

Being mentally strong

We did an experiment to see if two teams could use one piece of paper to raise a mug right off the table. They couldn't!

• I’d walk to Asda.

• The one in Blackburn.

• I’d walk to Aldi for ice cream.

• I’d walk to India for mangoes.

• I’d walk to the top shop for chewing gum.

Rev Rebecca invited a child from each class to make some bread. She cooked it at church and brought it to the children. This caused great excitement!

Rev Rebecca shared with us the importance of bread to Christians.

We learned that the bible is the best selling book ever. There are 66 books in it all with their own authors.

The bible guides us just like a light does. We learned about some of the authors of the books in the bible.

5 volunteers had two bags to choose from.

One had sweets and one had another options: carrot, porridge, apple, egg and a candle. They had to imagine they were very hungry and choose a bag. Some choices were harder to make than others.

What seemed like a wise choice wasn’t as simple. Choosing porridge was healthier but we didn’t have any hot water.

Thumb - People closest to us

Pointer finger - People who point the way

Tallest finger - People in authority

Ring finger - People who are weak

Little finger - Little old you.

Praying as a whole group and in tripods helped us all to reflect on forgiveness and things that we could do better at.

We wonder who may you need to forgive today?

We then focussed on praying for the Earth, specifically for areas of the world in which there are conflict.

We talked with our talk partners about why peace is important to Christians.

We had some thinking time to reflect on what we can each do to help bring more peace to the world.

We started by talking in talk partners about something exciting we know:

'A certain breed of koala bear can drop from trees and hurt you'

'Harry Potter doesn’t really fly in the movies - it's called green screen'

We then discussed some things which we want to know more about:

'How are clouds made?'

'Will humans survive the future?'

'Are movies real in the multiverse?'

'How do trees get their leaves?'

'How old is John Cena?'

We then discussed what giant things we need God to be by our sides with. Some of the ideas shared were; moving house, starting high school and being brave enough to speak up to people who are unkind.

It was lovely to see how Years 2, 4 and 6 all worked together.

Rev Rebecca asked two volunteers to wait for a timer to finish and to wait and catch a ball.

Waiting was hard but we talked about how it was easier when we had hope. The wait for Christians at advent is easier because they have hope that one day, Jesus will return.

We asked God to help us find peaceful moments.

Merry Christmas.

Epiphany is also known as Three Kings' Day and it marks the celebration of how a star led the Magi - also known as the Three kings or the Wise Men - to visit the baby Jesus after he had been born. This happened 12 days after Jesus was born - something we often forget during our Nativity performances!

'Epiphany' comes from the Greek word meaning 'to reveal', as it is when the baby Jesus was 'revealed' to the world.

In Spain and Latin America, El Dia de los Reyes is just as important as Christmas Day itself. The night before El Día de los Reyes, children leave out drinks for the Three Kings and there are parades and fireworks displays to mark the occasion.

In the Czech Republic, those who are up for the challenge celebrate Epiphany by swimming in the freezing cold Vltava river in Prague. Men also dress up as the Magi, riding on camels through Prague's city centre, as part of the Three Kings Day Parade.

In Mexico, people celebrate Epiphany by eating a special sweet bread called Rosca de Reyes. The bread is ring-shaped and topped with candied fruit. A small plastic figure of baby Jesus is normally hidden inside the the Rosca de Reyes before it's cut, and whoever finds it is thought to have good luck.

(Credit: info pasted from BBC Newsround)

During our worship today, the children explored each characteristic again in talking tripods (groups of three mixed year group children). They reflected on which they felt was most important.

We learned about William Wilberforce who worked hard to make a change to bring freedom to slaves. We did a quiz to find out some information about him.

5 things to learn from William Wilberforce:

1. Don’t let anyone tell you that your voice doesn’t matter

2. Be inspired by the gospel

3. Be prepared for opposition

4. Recognise that change can take a long time

5. Get involved and stay involved

We discussed in talk partners about what change we would want to see and how we could make it happen:

I would help nature by picking up litter - Rae Y3

I would make it illegal to hurt people. We could write a letter to our MP - Karthik Y4

I would try and stop war because there’s still lots of people fighting - Justin Y6

We talked about making a difference to our local area too by writing to our MP about the slippery path near school!!

God hears all our prayers, even when we pray alone, but it is good to pray with other people.

We heard a bible story all about when the church prayed for Peter so he could escape from prison. An angel went to Peter and freed him.

Stop wars

Stop floods

Stop climate change

Not putting rubbish in the world

No rubbish in the water

Stop pollution

Get a puppy

Some Year 6 children demonstrated how a light can be shared between lots of candles with it fading. Jesus came to Earth to be our light and to share God's love.

The theme for Children's Mental Health Week this year is 'KNOW YOURSELF, GROW YOURSELF'. Our Peer Mentors shared something that they are good at and something that they would like to improve to help them grow. This inspired other children to come to the front of the whole school and show how they know themselves and how they would like to grow. 😃

The online safety day theme this year is:

'Too Good to be True? Protecting Yourself and Others from Scams Online'

The children learnt about scams and what they can do to protect themself when they are online on their devices and much more.

Our Cultural Capital Committee did a great job of reminding everyone of our St James' Online Safety rules at the end of the assembly.

Everyone has taken part in online safety activities in class during the day.

We talked about Moses and what could have been on his mind as he made the journey to the top of the mountain. God told him to be still. We talked about how hard it can be to be present in busy moments in life and to be open to hearing from God.

We watched a video about a wave of kindness and how we can make a difference. We also heard from a guest psychologist who told us how being kind positively impacts ourselves.

Rev Rebecca explored this with us today. Two Reception children were tasked with not laughing when two Y6 children made faces and noises at them.

Rec Rebecca talked about how Jesus is the thing we focus on when there are distractions and how this gets us through life.

We talked about how this story illustrates how Jesus is the Light of the world and in times on darkness, He is there to shine His light and guide us.

We will explore introducing more gratitude to our lives and school day.

Gratitude is our response of thankfulness for God’s goodness, love, provision, and grace. Our gratitude flows from an awareness that, regardless of our circumstance, God loves us and is with us.

At the end of this half term, we will have a very important decision to make! We will vote whether or not we want to add gratitude as a new value for school.

The children thoroughly enjoyed it and it was a great way of enabled them to explore their spirituality and connect with their likes and interests. For many, it was an opportunity to consider engaging in something which they hadn't before.

In class, the children continued to reflect on what they are grateful for and added to their class gratitude sheets.

Philippians 4:6 - Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

The Bible tells us to do three things when we’re worried: Don’t worry about it. Pray about it. Thank God.

We continued our reflection in class about gratitude.

Our new school value!!

We voted in our last celebration worship of the half term and the result was unanimous! Gratitude is our new, 6th value.