The unique context of our school means that our bespoke curriculum meets the personalised needs of every child. The community we serve at Clarendon is in the top 10% of deprivation; 75% of children speaking English as a Additional Language and with a growing number of International New Arrivals that have no/little English. Our curriculum is devised to allow for a clear sequence of ‘pre and post’ teaching strongly focusing on the recap, practice and application to securely embed knowledge and skills. Groupings throughout EYFS and KS1 are carefully planned, managed and allow fluidity to ensure no child is left behind. All teaching is completed through Quality First Teaching, and staff has been thoroughly trained to ensure confidence and consistency in delivering outstanding learning experiences for all children, regardless of ability.

At Clarendon Primary School, we teach Phonics through the DfE validated ‘Systematic Synthetic Phonics’ programme ‘Supersonic Phonic Friends’. This is what it looks like in each year group:

Reception
In Reception, children are engaged daily in playful, multisensory phonics lessons twice a day. This approach meets the needs of our children, as we understand the importance of providing support after teaching to help them embed their learning and retain the sounds they are working with. Children are taught one spelling for 18 of the 44 sounds of the English language. Children use their auditory and memory knowledge from Basics 1 to recognise the spellings with Sam, segment and build with Seb and Bill, read and blend with Rex and Ben and write with Ron. Children will then progress into Basics 3 (Phase 3) which teaches the further 26 out of 44 sounds of the English Language continuing to use all the skills from Basics 2 (Phase 2). Children will continue to learn the early concepts of Choose to Use with Suze for spellings and an introduction to Switch it with Mitch for alternative pronunciations of spellings for the sounds. Children learn their tricky words with Tess and Nonsense Word with Nan to thoroughly prepare them and exposing them to these words before moving into Year 1 for the national Phonics Screening Test.

Children read decodable texts, using the Build and Blend books, containing The Basics 2 and 3 spellings matched to their Phonics set. Children will make phonetically plausible attempts in their emerging stages of spelling. At the end of Reception children can hear up to three sounds in a word. They can recognise spellings, read, and write simple and complex CVC words using the 44 spellings they have been taught.

Year 2

The focus of the teaching is develop children’s knowledge of specific spelling rules, adding prefixes and suffixes, and adding endings to words such as plurals.  At the end of Year 2 children can ‘Choose to Use’ spellings for the 44 sounds in the English language. They can switch spellings and sounds for alternative pronunciations. They can read decodable texts with The Basics 2 -4 (Phases 2-4), The ‘Higher Levels’ spellings, Spelling Patterns and Rules. This enables children to embed these spelling skills in their reading and writing.  Children read books to develop their comprehension skills.

Due to the context of our children, Phonics for those children who did not pass their Phonics Screening Test in Year 1 is continued to be taught to meet the needs of these children before their retake. These children are monitored and tracked carefully using our ‘Detailed Phonics Tracker’ to gain an insight as to the extra support these children are receiving allowing teachers to have a sound understanding of personalised needs for these children. These children continue to read books matched to their Phonics sounds set, whilst building their comprehension skills.

Once children have completed their Phonics Programme, there is a strong focus on fluency and comprehension skills.

Reading Books
To enhance the teaching of phonics, phonics based reading books, are used throughout Early Years and Key Stage 1. These are drawn from a variety of schemes to expose children to a range of different genres and texts based on their reading level. Additional Reading books are specifically organised to match the progression of the Supersonic Phonic Friends scheme, from The Basics 1-5 (Phases 1-5) so children receive a reading book that is closely linked to their level of phonic knowledge.

Lens Den

In order to support children pre- and post-learn their phonics sounds, develop and integrate comprehension, and make sure they can “keep up, not catch up,” each EYFS and KS1 classroom has a designated space or phase boxes which include sound specific books related to current sounds , games and spelling resources to support learning.  This enables children to work on a range of multimodal learning activities before going on to the next sound set. For the purpose of supporting their comprehension of sounds in reading and developing the application of writing, children can select the activity in which to use their knowledge of letters, words, phrases, and captions.

Phonics Screening Check

In the Summer Term, every Year 1 child will take a statutory Phonics Screening Check. This is a phonics based check where the children will be expected to read 40 simple, de-codable words including nonsense words. This is a progress check to identify those children who are at the expected level in their phonics. The results will be reported to parents. Children will be rechecked in Year 2 if they do not reach the expected level.

Precision Teaching

In Key Stage 1, we implement Phonics Precision Teaching to ensure that every child masters their phonics skills. This targeted approach involves regular, focused sessions that build on the foundational skills acquired in Reception. By assessing each child’s progress frequently, we are able to identify any gaps in learning and provide tailored support to reinforce their understanding. Through this method, we ensure that children not only learn to read and decode words with confidence but also retain the phonics knowledge they need for continued success in their reading and writing journey.