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Kivunim is a two-year programme which our young people are invited to join as they transition to secondary school, at the beginning of Year 7. Girls are treated in exactly the same manner as boys, in accordance with our core value of egalitarianism. All girls and boys become Bat or Bar Mitzvah on their thirteenth birthday, according to the Jewish date, and will be given the opportunity to lead the Shabbat shacharit service and read Torah on a shabbat shortly following this date. All students are treated as individuals and every effort will be made to accommodate individual needs or learning difficulties.

The programme consists of two strands: Reform Judaism and Hebrew.

Reform Judaism

The Kivunim curriculum focuses on six main topics: in Year 7 we explore Jewish Identity, Tikkun Olam and Community; in Year 8 we focus on Jewish Ritual, Informed Decision Making and Jewish Life beyond B’nei Mitzvah. We encourage the students to debate issues and to think about their own Jewish practice and what is important to them as individuals, as a member of the Sinai community and as a member of the wider Jewish community. These topics are introduced on the RJUK Kivunim residential weekends and developed in regular Kivunim Activity sessions back at Sinai. These will be led by an experienced teacher who also has lots of experience in informal Jewish education, with an emphasis on enjoyment and building positive Jewish identity, helping each individual to achieve their chosen goals. Some of the activities will need to be done at home and we ask parents to support your children in this. When the students have completed any of the activities, they can log it on the Kivunim App, earn points (footsteps) and even win prizes as they progress along their Jewish journey.

Residential Weekends

The core part of the Kivunim programme is delivered at the residential weekends and all students are required to attend these events, twice a year. Further information and dates are given in the Kivunim brochure.

Hebrew

Hebrew is taught in small groups, accommodating students at different levels of Hebrew fluency, including complete beginners. We follow a curriculum based on the Siddur, and the lessons involve discussion about the meanings and interpretations of the liturgy.  This takes place on Saturday mornings, at 9:15-10:15, before the service starts. Once a month the students take part in our Kivunim Family Service, where they gain experience of leading prayers from the bimah. Service attendance is an important part of their learning and helps them become more familiar with the prayers, tunes, and format of Jewish worship at Sinai.

A year before their 13^th birthday the children are given a date for their Bar/Bat Mitzvah and may move from group Hebrew learning to an individual tutor. A peer mentor may also be available, usually a teenager who has recently become Bar or Bat Mitzvah themselves.  They will hear the student practice reading from the siddur, building up a relationship with both the child, the parents, and the tutor. 

The tutor will be chosen in consultation with the parents and the child in order to provide the whole family with a positive learning outcome.  The tutor teaches the student his/her Parashah, helps them write a D’var Torah, discusses the Haftarah, helps the student choose a study passage and ensures that they are prepared and confident to lead the community through the Shabbat Shacharit service. Tutors may charge a fee for tutoring; however, we are fortunate at Sinai to have a group of experienced and extremely knowledgeable adults who are willing to give up their time to act as tutors to ensure that all our Kivunim students are catered for.  

All our young people will be supported to fulfil the mitzvah of Bar/Bat Mitzvah and acknowledge their transition into Jewish adulthood in a way which is most appropriate to them; so, for example, students with additional learning needs or those lacking in confidence will be supported by appropriate tutors and rabbinic input to design a ceremony which is meaningful and appropriate for the family.

Becoming part of the Sinai Community

We encourage families to become involved in all parts of Sinai life and to see the Kivunim programme as preparation for their future involvement with and commitment to the Sinai community, not just for the student, but for the whole family.

We hope that our young people will agree that all parts of this programme have value and decide for themselves to participate fully. Of course, they need the full support of their parents and wider family to do this. We rely on parents to encourage their children to participate fully, despite all the other claims on their time during the two years of the Kivunim programme, and ask parents and children to sign an agreement committing to do so.  

Starting with topics that are meaningful and relevant to the children is key, and learning through games is crucial to the philosophy of the programme.

Learners are first introduced to the Hebrew words for members of the family, using pictures. They have lots of opportunities to learn these words orally through using them in a variety of games before they are introduced to the written words. They understand the meaning of the words from the context of their prior knowledge of family members; there is no vocabulary which would not be meaningful to most children.

The programme is inclusive as the images depict characters that can be suitable for all types of family units. Only when the learners know and understand the words orally are they introduced to the written words. They learn to recognise the whole shape of the word without being expected to know individual letters or syllables, first through playing games and later through activities in their Eizeh Kef workbook.

When learners are confident recognising the whole word, we begin to break it down, focusing on the first sound of each word. Learners acquire all the letters and vowels from the first sounds (letter and vowel) of all the key vocabulary in each unit. By the end of the first unit, children are able to read and understand simple short texts in Hebrew comprising the six letters and five vowels they have learned in that unit.

Each new unit builds on the previous one and incorporates all the vocabulary from each. In this way, children learn the language in building blocks. By the end of the fourth unit, children will have learned all the Hebrew letters and vowels. The remaining three units build on this knowledge in the form of short stories, texts and more complex grammatical structures.

The programme will be taught by Nikki Walters and Helen Michael, both of whom have recently had training in this from Dr Jo-Ann Myers, Director of Education and lecturer at Leo Baeck College, and the Hebrew language specialist who developed the Eizeh Kef programme.

We are confident that this programme follows a more natural and intuitive way to learn the language than the traditional way of learning Hebrew focusing first on letters and building up to reading whole words. It is also a lot more fun, learning through games and lots of repetition and focusing on meaningful vocabulary.

Parents are very welcome to join their children in the class to see what we do and find out how to help your child practise at home. If you don’t know any Hebrew it is a great opportunity to start and learn alongside your child.