Intent
At Newbold Church School it is our intent that phonics is taught in a fun and interactive manner which enables the children to use mnemonics and actions to recall phonemes and graphemes from their session. This then enables them to be able to apply this key skill in their reading and writing starting from Nursery as a strong foundation to build on. The children will be able to use the strong phonics foundation taught throughout EYFS and KS1 through the rest of their school journey and in their wider life.
Implementation
At Newbold Church School, phonics is taught using the Department for Education validated "Supersonic Phonic Friends" programme. This is a fully systematic, synthetic phonic approach ranging from the simple to the complex spellings of the alphabetic code.
Supported by the Supersonic Phonic friends, this approach helps our children to develop confidence and apply each skill to their own reading and writing. We have chosen this programme as it provides an engaging, fun and active approach to teaching, which matches our ethos in school.
A progression document provided by Supersonic Phonics demonstrates how it will be implemented across the different year groups and how skills are built on from Nursery through to Year 2.
Impact
Children will have a strong foundation in phonics and be able to recognise the 44 sounds (or phonemes) in the English language, know which letters (or graphemes) represent these. They will be able to correctly apply these into their reading and writing, working towards an independent way of working. This will enable the children to become fluent readers and confident writers, having all the foundation skills needed.
We use a range of strategies to assess these skills and knowledge including the following:
- Phonics tracker to assess the children's progress (each half term / full term)
- Phonics jotter to monitor the application of the phonics in the children's writing
- In lesson observations
- Pupil's voice and self-assessment
- Feedback from each lesson