Intent:

At Bishop Ridley C of E Primary School, we aim to develop a love of reading in every pupil from an early age, by delivering an engaging and exciting Phonics curriculum that will provide pupils with the skills to become confident, independent and enthusiastic readers.

We recognise that Phonics represents a body of knowledge needed for successful word reading, and by providing pupils with daily systematic synthetic Phonics lessons from the start of their schooling, we aim for all pupils to quickly acquire the skills required to not only accurately decode words when reading, but also encode words when spelling.  

We acknowledge that reading provides pupils with access to the rest of the curriculum and is fundamental to their educational success. As such, it is a priority at Bishop Ridley to intervene with pupils who are having difficulties with the learning of Phonics and to proactively tackle any challenges they may hold by providing smaller group and 1:1 sessions with highly-trained adults who can support those who struggle.

We understand the importance of allowing pupils the opportunity to apply their continually developing Phonics knowledge through being provided with regular opportunities to read a range of books that are consistent with the Phonics knowledge they currently possess and do not require other strategies to work out how to read words. In school, pupils read to adults from our Phonics scheme’s physical book selection, and are provided with a range of similarly matched eBooks to read with adults at home.  

Implementation

At Bishop Ridley, in Reception and Year 1, we teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, from Week 2 of the Autumn term, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.

At Bishop Ridley, we follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress. Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.

Children in Year 1 review Phases 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their knowledge. We timetable regular phonics interventions for any child in Year 2 and above who is not fully fluent at reading or who has not passed the Phonics screening check.

We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These are taught by a fully-trained adult to small groups of approximately six children. We use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids. These sessions and groups are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.

Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills: decoding, prosody (teaching to read using understanding and expression) and comprehension (understanding of the text).

Every teacher at Bishop Ridley has been trained to teach reading using Little Wandle, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so we lower children’s cognitive load. Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term. Lesson templates, Prompt cards and ‘How to’ videos ensure all teachers have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.

Impact

 At Bishop Ridley, assessment is used, through Little Wandle, to monitor progress and identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.

Assessment for Learning is used daily within class to identify children needing Keep-up support and weekly in the Review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.

Summative Assessment for Reception and Year 1 is used every six weeks to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.

Fluency Assessments measure children’s accuracy and reading speed in short one-minute assessments. They are used in Year 1, when children are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books and to assess when children are ready to exit their programme. For Year 1 children, this is when they read the final fluency assessment at 60–70+ words per minute. Older children can exit the Rapid Catch-up programme when they read the final fluency assessment at 90+ words per minute. At these levels, children should have sufficient fluency to tackle any book at age-related expectations. After exiting their programme, children do not need to ready any more fully decodable books.

Placement Assessment is used with any child new to the school in Reception and Year 1 to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan and provide appropriate extra teaching.

Rapid Catch-up Assessment is used with any child new to the school in Year 2 and above to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan and provide appropriate extra teaching.

Statutory assessment is used in Year 1 when all children will sit the Phonics screening check. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.

Children  in Years 2 and 6 are assessed through the Rapid Catch-up initial assessment to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan appropriate teaching.