02. Phonics

The aim is to teach children the phonic knowledge and skills they need to become fluent readers by the age of seven. Phonics is taught from Nursery through to Year 2. However, the good practice continues into Year 3.  We integrate phonics and spelling lessons so that all children are confident in their phonic knowledge.  Our successful, bespoke approach has been honed over years. Initially, it was based on the Jolly Phonics scheme. Then, we improved it with the guidance from Letter and Sounds. When the National Curriculum was updated, we amended our overview in line with the increased spelling expectations. Recently, we have adapted it further following training on Rosenshine’s principles to increase the efficacy of our approach.

We have visually appealing, well-structured and progressive flipcharts, that we use in class, to enable us to deliver high quality lessons with good pace. These link with our learning of the Barnes high frequency words to ensure a very joined up approach.  

Our phonics screening results can be found here:

Pupil outcomes in the phonics screening check continue to be highly impressive. In 2019 only one pupil (a pupil with an Education Health and Care plan) failed to meet the pass mark of 32 out of a possible 40.