| Phonics at Lawley Primary School |
Our school vision:
| The whole school community at Lawley have high expectations for our children, and strive to ensure they leave school as confident, polite and independent young people, with the appropriate skills, values and learning to become successful in whatever their future will be. We aspire to instil in all our children a desire to never stop learning and to have the courage to succeed in whatever they do, across all areas of school life and beyond. At Lawley we are ‘Planting the seeds, growing the future.’ |
Led by Melissa Allcock
Our Intent:
At Lawley Primary we want every child to be successful, fluent readers and writers by the end of Key Stage One and we believe that this is achievable through a combination of strong, high quality, discrete phonics teaching combined with regular, daily opportunities for developing reading skills. The teaching of phonics is a key strategy that is used to help our children to read, write and spell.
At Lawley we promote a love for reading. We celebrate world book day and invite authors in to share their stories with all year groups. We have reading corners in all our classrooms that have a range of books to spark children’s interest, provide familiarity and that are phonetically decodable for that year group. We have recordings of our own staff reading books and delivering phonic sessions on Showbie (our online learning platform) for children to watch and engage with at home. At Lawley, each class is read to by an adult every day using their class text.
Our implementation:
We are using Bug Club Phonics to plan and resource our lessons, which follow the six phases of phonics. Each session begins with a recap of the phonemes children have learnt to date, helping them to remember and consolidate what they have already learnt.
Planning for phonics is separate from the English planning and is differentiated within each year group, based on the individual needs of the children. Phonics is taught through discrete phonic sessions, regular reading and writing sessions and through embedding the phonics by linking it with other curriculum subjects throughout the school day.
Progression: Phonics taught in our Early Years feeder settings is closely monitored by the Hub lead. Phase one is taught in these settings, with some phase two depending on the needs of the child.
By the end of the Summer Term, Reception children should be familiar up to the end of Phase three.
By the end of Year one, the majority of children should have completed phase 5. Then by the end of Year 2, children should be proficient in their phonics knowledge and have completed Phase six.
Children in Year 2 who did not meet the required standard for phonics and need more work on ‘decoding’ and ‘word reading’ skills, will have opportunities to practice this using daily phonics sessions or in targeted afterschool phonic interventions lead by members of the Phonic Hub. Children in KS2 who need further phonic intervention work will do so through targeted interventions in a daily Phonic Hub session monitored and led by the Phonic Hub Lead.
Timetabling: Discrete phonics sessions in class will be timetabled and taught daily from Reception through to Year 2. The expectation is that phonics is taught for a minimum of 20 – 25 minutes in Reception, 25– 30 minutes in Years 1 and 2.
The Phonics Hub is timetabled by the Phonic lead at the end of each half term. Taking into consideration the progress made towards children’s phonic passport assessment.
Expectations for Home Learning: Across the EYFS and Key Stage One classes, parents are encouraged to read daily with their child. Books are provided at the child’s phonetic level. Both paper copies and online resources are accessible, via ‘Bug club’. Regular reading at home should enable the children to use segmenting and blending techniques taught in phonics sessions. At Lawley, we provide support in the reading diaries for parents so they can help their children to read in line with our Phonic provision in school.
In EYFS the children have sound mats that link to their phonics learning in their Home/School Learning Journal. Along with Tricky Truck word cards to learn, relating to their phonic phase. In Years 1 and 2, weekly spellings are sent home, to enable children to practice/apply the phonic knowledge they have learnt that week.
At the start of Reception parents are invited to phonics sessions, highlighting the focus phonemes/graphemes for that year and are provided with activity ideas and resources to help them practice at home. Another phonic meeting is then held in Year one to explain the expectations of phonics within that year, including the ‘Phonics Screening Test’.
Our Impact:
Teachers use phonic passport assessments (end of unit tests) to track and review children’s progress. These assessments are then taken with the children to their next year group, to be progressed through to the end of year two, or until phase 6 is complete if this is not the case by the end of year two. Assessments also inform teachers of targeted intervention sessions that may be needed for those children who struggle with the learning of phonics. Often, precision teaching is used as an intervention for reading/writing identified sounds/tricky words that are missing from assessment.
The implementation of this curriculum ensures that, by the time children leave Lawley Primary School, they are competent in reading and writing fluently and at speed.