English
Our English curriculum is underpinned by the belief that all children need a secure foundation in reading and writing. We believe that strong outcomes are achieved when key skills are taught clearly and revisited regularly, allowing children to practise and embed their learning over time. Reading sits at the heart of our approach, supporting vocabulary development, comprehension and a wider understanding of the world. We ensure all pupils have access to a rich and varied curriculum, enabling them to make connections across their learning. Confidence, fluency and independence are the goals for every child, and we are committed to providing an ambitious English curriculum for all.
Nutshell documents for Reading and Writing
Handwriting - Kinetic Letters
At St James we follow the Kinetic Letters scheme for teaching handwriting. Kinetic letters is a scheme that allows children to learn letter formation through movement. We learn letters by moving to make our bodies look like letters, saying the language as we make the letters and finally writing the letter using the language. Children are taught exercises to strengthen core muscles to help with their writing.
The children become familiar with the characters of Bounce and Skip, ‘brave’ monkey and ‘scared’ monkey, to help them recognise where to start to form each letter. In Reception the children read the stories of the adventures of Skip and Bounce and begin to learn the different letter families. Children begin to join letters from Year 2 upwards.
Kinetic Letters is taught alongside phonics to establish the close link between reading and writing.
Find out more about Kinetic Letters
