Intent:

At Birchfield Primary School we are committed to the delivery of excellence in the teaching of phonics. We aim to develop this with each child, so that they are able to read with fluency as well as developing a love of reading. The learning of phonics is the beginning of children’s body of knowledge, skills and understanding that are an essential part of learning to read. At Birchfield Essential Letters and Sounds is the chosen phonics programme. The aim of ELS is ‘Getting all children to read well, quickly’.

Throughout the day, children will use their growing phonics knowledge and the skills to then to apply this independently, during activities. This will result in children being able to read for pleasure and will allow them to move onto developing higher order reading for meaning skills. ELS teaches relevant, useful and ambitious vocabulary to support each child’s journey to becoming fluent and independent readers.

Implementation:

In line with the school’s policy and commitment to excellence in phonics, each class in Reception and Year 1 will have a daily phonics session. Children begin learning phonics at the very beginning of Reception and it is explicitly taught every day during a dedicated slot on the timetable. Children are given the knowledge and skills to then apply this independently. Children continue daily phonics lessons in Year 1 and further through the school to ensure all children become confident, fluent readers. Weekly phonics homework for each child, supports learning at home. The children’s progress of pupils is monitored and evaluated closely and all teachers have high aspirations of every pupil. We want all children reach and exceed their full potential and additional support is put in place if we feel that children are finding an aspect of phonics challenging.

Impact:

• Children will make progress through the different phases of phonics in line with Year Group expectations and make progress from their own individual starting points.
• Children will become confident and resilient in tackling unfamiliar words by applying learnt knowledge and skills to segment, blend and read words which are real and nonsense.
• Children will demonstrate high levels of engagement in phonics and will apply their phonological knowledge when reading and writing.
• Children will have an increased recognition of harder to read and spell words when reading and apply these when writing.
• Children with additional needs will develop phonic skills and knowledge and they will develop their ability to apply this across the curriculum, which will help to prepare them for the next stage in their education.