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Phonics

Phonics

 

Our Phonics Leader is Mrs Wild

Our Early Reading Leader is Mrs Marshall 

Hendal Primary School has embarked upon a Rapid Improvement Journey with Phonics and with the way in which we teach early reading.

In September 2019 we introduced the “Floppy’s Phonics Sounds and Letters Programme.” Every member of teaching staff throughout the whole school participated in a two days of continuous professional development delivered by Debbie Hepplewhite, the author of the scheme.

The Floppy’s Phonics Sounds and Letters Programme is a rigorous Systematic Synthetic Phonics Programme that goes hand in hand with our school ethos, “Belong Aspire Achieve.” The familiar characters, storylines and illustrations of Biff, Chip and Kipper promote in our children a sense of belonging. The rigorous structure of Phonics Lessons, through the use of routine and repetition to Revisit, Review, Teach, Practise, Apply and Consolidate, further complements our children’s learning styles and is embedding phonics skills for early reading across the school.

The programme teaches all of the sounds of the English Language and an extremely comprehensive range of graphemes from the alphabetic code. The sounds are introduced systematically throughout the programme allowing children to build up their code knowledge and phonic skills ensuring a smooth progression with their reading.

For a more detailed explanation of how we teach Floppy’s Phonics across school please click on the link below – 

Floppys Presentation for parents 2023 24

At Hendal we Aspire for all pupils to transition from Year 1 having achieved age related expectations or above in Reading. We Aspire for all children to become successful readers who enjoy reading and sharing books. Parental feedback reflects the impact of our teaching on their children’s progress and achievements.

“The new approach to reading has made my son more excited to read.” (Parent)

“Since using Floppy’s Phonics my child can now sound out independently.” (Parent)

The Impact can be seen in out 2020 targets. We have 85% of children on track to pass the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check. This is a 12% increase on 2019 results. Children tell us that they enjoy their Phonics lessons and that they are learning and remembering new sounds daily. This in turn means children are increasing the amount of words they can read and are reading more challenging words with confidence. This evidence supports our intention for all children to be proficient readers by the end of Key Stage One. “Phonics helps us to read new words.” (Child)

The programme offers comprehensive multisensory resources and is fully integrated with our decodable Floppy’s Phonics Fiction and Non-fiction reading books which we use in EYFS and Keys Stages 1 (and when needed in Key Stage 2.)

We are working in partnership with the Jerry Clay English HUB and are part of the Intensive Support Initiative. Our External Reading Leader joins us each half term in an intensive one day visit to challenge, coach and develop our methods and delivery. We believe this approach enables all our staff to be fully apprised of refinements ensuring consistency and maintaining “Best Practice.”

The Reading Leader had lead and managed transformational changes to the teaching of early reading in the school which is now showing measurable impact on pupil outcomes.

(Literacy Specialist January 2020)

Mrs Wild our Reading Leader, works alongside staff to team teach and deliver weekly reading meetings to constantly improve our teaching of Phonics. We believe that fluent reading is developed through early language acquisition, inspiring a love of reading in our children, and through application of a secure knowledge of Phonics.

We work rigorously, as a whole team to challenge ourselves on the best ways to teach Phonics through Floppy’s Sounds and Letters Phonics Programme. New staff all receive Floppy’s Phonics training prior to working with us to ensure consistency is maintained.

How to support at home

Please read with your child everyday 5 minutes will make a big difference. If your child needs help with a word you can remind them to use our ‘Reading Routine’

In Floppy’s Phonics we use our READING ROUTINE 

SPOT THE DIGRAPHS/TRIGRAPHS

SAY THE SOUNDS

READ THE WORD

Please come in and speak to your child’s class teacher or Mrs Wild if you feel your child needs any extra support. We want ALL children at Hendal to LOVE reading and to become confident, fluent readers.