Phonics

English has a pre-eminent place in education and in society. A high-quality education in English will teach pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them. Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. Reading also enables pupils both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know. All the skills of language are essential to participating fully as a member of society; pupils, therefore, who do not learn to speak, read and write fluently and confidently are effectively disenfranchised.

Our curriculum for reading and phonics aims to ensure that all pupils:

• read easily, fluently and with good understanding
• develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
• acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
• appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage

The curriculum’s programmes of study for reading at key stages 1 and 2 consist of two dimensions: word reading and comprehension (both listening and reading). It is essential that the teaching of reading focuses on developing pupils’ competence in both dimensions and different kinds of teaching are needed for each.

Skilled word reading involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words. Underpinning both is the understanding that the letters on the page represent the sounds in spoken words. This is why phonics should be emphasised in the early teaching of reading to beginners (i.e., unskilled readers) when they start school.

Phonics starts in the early years foundation stage (EYFS) where children will focus on environmental sounds and developing their understanding of language and the sounds around them. As children progress through the EYFS and ks1 they will develop their understanding of sounds through the teaching of the Sounds-Write programme. During these sessions children will develop their skills in segmenting, blending and phoneme manipulation and develop their understanding of concepts including: letters are symbols of sounds; sounds can be represented by 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters; one sound can be represented in many ways and spellings are represented by many sounds. During Sounds-Write lessons in ks1 children will be taught whole class five days a week by a trained teacher. Ks2 children will have spelling lessons which follow the same lesson structure and lesson plans that are used in ks1. These lessons will be three to five times a week depending on the length of the lesson and the complexity of the spellings being taught. If children are still needing Initial Code and Extended Code support in ks2, they will receive this in a small group which has been carefully planned.

The impact of the curriculum will be assessed in a variety of ways.

Formative assessment will be planned into day-to-day lessons, with teachers assessing whether the pupils have met the objective(s) or not. This will then contribute to summative assessment which assesses whether pupils are on track or not as the year progresses, and then a final end of year assessment indicating whether each pupil has met or not the expectations for their current year group. 

The phonics curriculum will be assessed termly through the use of Phonics Tracker which allows teachers to see any gaps that children may have, and this will inform future planning and any interventions that need to take place. A more summative assessment of phonics takes place in the form of the phonics screening check which will be administered in the summer term at the end of Year One. If children do not pass the phonics screening check in Year One they will have the opportunity to retake the phonics screening check in Year Two (following additional input to fill gaps in their learning).

The subject leader will also regularly assess the effectiveness of the planned curriculum and make changes as appropriate to ensure the best possible outcomes. This will be done through monitoring which could include looking at books to see if feedback, retrieval and assessment are all in place; learning walks to assess teacher knowledge and presentation of learning; conversations with pupils to see what has been learnt and if they can recognise prior learning links; conversations with staff to discuss impact and effectiveness of curriculum overall. As part of this monitoring, the leader will need to consider outcomes for all groups of pupils within the school, particularly disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs and disabilities.