Phonics at St. Anne’s Catholic Primary School
Phonics Leads: Miss Gullick

Intent

At St. Anne’s Catholic Primary School, we are passionate about ensuring all children become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers. We believe that Phonics provides the foundations of learning to make the development into fluent reading and writing easier. The systematic teaching of Phonics has a high priority throughout Foundation Stage and Key Stage One, and we acknowledge that children need a rigorous, well-planned Phonics programme that is delivered consistently throughout the school by trained staff.

We offer a structure and sequence of lessons to help teachers ensure they have covered the skills required to meet the aims of our Phonics programme, and these lessons are supported by a vast range of quality resources. We also value and encourage the pupils to read for enjoyment and recognise that this starts with the foundations of acquiring letter sounds, segmenting and blending skills.

Implementation

Through the teaching of Phonics following the Rising Stars Rocket Phonics programme, the children are taught the essential skills needed for reading. Phonics is taught daily to all children in Reception and Year 1. Rising Stars Rocket Phonics Next Steps is used in Year Two.

• Revisit and review – revisit and review previously taught sounds.
• Teach – model and teach the sound or common exception word.
• Practise and apply – Children practise and apply what they have learnt.
• Apply – Children transfer skills to English and wider curriculum lessons. 

Staff systematically teach learners the relationship between sounds and the written spelling patterns, or graphemes, which represent them. Phonics is delivered in a whole class format because it enables staff to ensure application across subjects embedding the process in a rich literacy environment for early readers.

Phonics interventions are in place for the lowest 20% of children in the class, these focus on pencil grip and making marks on paper, letter formation, recap of graphemes and common exception words, and blending and segmenting.

Teachers regularly assess the pupil’s Phonics knowledge using Rising Stars Rocket Phonics half termly assessments. These regular assessments allow teachers to identify any gaps in learning.

The children have reading books which match their current Phonics level and that they are encouraged to read at least 5 times a week.

Impact

We believe that the impact of using our Phonics scheme will ensure that our children have a good grasp of phonological knowledge and understanding. Through the teaching of systematic Phonics and staff’s high expectations, our aim is for all children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One.

Attainment in Phonics is measured by the Phonics screening test at the end of Year One. It is our aim that parents will have a clear understanding of how Phonics is taught throughout the school and the impact it is having on their children. They will also understand how to further support their children with this learning at home.