St. Andrew's CofE (aided) Primary School

Phonics

At St. Andrew’s Primary School, we strive to ensure that all children become successful, fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One. We believe that this is achievable through a combination of high quality, synthetic, systematic and discrete phonics teaching combined with a whole language approach that promotes reading for pleasure. We passionately believe that teaching children to read and write independently, as quickly as possible, is one of the core purposes of primary school. These  fundamental skills not only hold the keys to the rest of the curriculum but also have a huge impact on children’s self-esteem and future life chances.

We have worked alongside SpringHill English Hub to develop a personalised phonics programme using the Letters and Sounds guidance with Jolly Phonics actions. Phonics is taught in streamed ability groups for 25 minutes every morning across the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage One.