Our school curriculum is driven and shaped by our school vision, which informs everything that we do.

St Nicholas provides a welcoming, inclusive and aspirational learning environment at the heart of its community. We nurture, encourage and support all children, adults and their families to be the best as God intended. Following God’s example of love and trust, we develop resilience and creativity in all we do.

Learning, loving and encouraging through Christ.

An uncompromising focus on pupils’ personal development has made St Nicholas Church of England Primary Academy a place where pupils always come first. Ofsted 2019

Read, Write Inc.

At St Nicholas, our Key Stage 1 classes teach daily phonics lessons to ensure every child is a successful reader.

We follow the successful Ruth Miskin Read, Write Inc phonics programme; grouping children according to their reading ability and reading level.

Read, Write Inc is a systematic and dynamic literacy programme rooted in phonics. We teach children how to break down and decode words into their separate sounds components, known as phonemes. There are 44 phonemes taught throughout the programme, all of which are embedded in a range of fiction and non-fiction books. The words are taught prior to reading a book to ensure children are equipped at decoding them; we call this ‘Fred Talk’.

Fred is a Read, Write Inc character that only speaks and understands pure sounds (sounds in a word before they are blended).

How to Help at Home

Ruth Miskin has a fantastic website that offers a range of videos explaining how to support your child at home: www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents

Please ask your child what colour book they are reading in Read, Write Inc to guide you on where to look on the website.

If you would like any further information about Read, Write Inc please speak to Miss Common our Reading Leader, or see many of the resources below.

School Council Fundraising

School council have been busy organising fundraising activities this term. The fun started in March with Comic Relief. School council arranged a crazy hair day and come to school in red themed day. Several members of the school council came into school early and collected donations as the children and parents walked through the gates in the morning. They raised a tremendous £440.

After discussing fundraising activities and charities with their classes, the members of the school council agreed that they would raise money for the Salvation Army and Oxfam. Each class collected 10p’s for a coin race on the last day of term – Oak class collected the most. Well done. At the same time, we organised an enormous Easter egg raffle with all prizes donated by members of staff. Amidst much excitement, there was a raffle draw on the last day of term with over 50 prizes! With these efforts an impressive £550 was raised.

Some of the lucky winners!
The start of the exciting 10p race. Some of the lines got very long and a little bit wobbly.

Comic Relief 2019

For comic relief day, school council organised a Crazy Hair Day and wear red to school day. Members of the school council came into school earlier to collect money from excited children as they walked into school. They raised a magnificent £450. Well done to everyone who was involved.

Gold School Games Award

We have been awarded the School Games Mark Gold award.

The School Games Mark is a government led awards scheme launched in 2012 to reward schools for their commitment to the development of competition across their school and into the community. Participating in this process allows schools to evaluate their PE provision and assists them in developing an action plan for future progress.