Phonics

INTENT

At St Mary Magdalen’s Catholic Junior School phonics are used to support children that are new to English and those at risk of falling behind. Our school is a vibrant multi-cultural community; all living, learning and growing in our faiths together, fostering a highly valued sense of community aiming to ensure that the values and principles of the school reflect pupil’s diverse backgrounds, cultures and the wider community. Some of our families experience high levels of social and economic disadvantage and high social deprivation. Our community is ethnically and culturally diverse with over 30 different languages spoken in the school and therefore a significant number of EAL pupils from families who speak very little English. This presents us with several challenges that we overcome by ensuring we offer an inclusive, language rich curriculum. We are aware that our pupils live in the urban environment with many being unable to access more enriching experiences, opportunities to explore varied environments and limited access to books.

The Bug Club Phonics Programme study fosters children’s speaking and listening skills and equips them with the phonic knowledge and skills they need to become fluent readers.  The Bug Club Phonics offers printable materials intended to support pupils in consolidating their phonic knowledge. These printable materials can be customised by the teacher to match the context of each group as well as the needs of individual pupils.

The Bug Club Phonics is a systematic synthetic phonics scheme that enables our teacher to teach phonics in a fast and engaging way so that all pupils become confident readers. Bug Club Phonics is currently on the list of the DFE validated SSP Programmes and matches the expectations of the national curriculum and the early learning goals. The Bug Club Phonics provides inbuilt formative and summative assessment unit-by-unit as well as term-by-term. The decodable readers have been written to match the order in which grapheme-phoneme correspondences are introduced in class, giving pupils the opportunity to practise their blending skills and to consolidate their knowledge.

Bug Club Phonics resources and books are designed to build pupils’ knowledge cumulatively and teachers can feel confident that pupils will meet previously taught content in their reading books. Books can be allocated by Phonic Phases. Bug Club Phonics texts include fiction, comics and non-fiction and the Bug Club range includes plays and poetry. The books are rich in vocabulary and help to develop language comprehension through engaging contexts, characters and storylines.

IMPLEMENTATION

At St Mary Magdalen’s Catholic Junior School, daily high-quality, interactive phonics lessons are taught through a systematic approach.

Pupils are taught within their designated groups to ensure that all pupils are working within the expected standard or beyond. Synthetic phonics at our school are taught using Bug Club Phonics.

The Bug Club Phonics Programme study enables pupils to see the relationship between reading and spelling, and that one reinforces understanding of the other. Decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling) are treated as reversible processes. This programme is made up of a six-phase teaching programme with each phase building on the skills and knowledge of previous learning. Pupils are also taught to read and spell high frequency words for their phase.

The Bug Club Phonics programme is clearly mapped out, and is delivered daily by trained Support Staff. Each unit introduces a new set of letters/graphemes to decode whilst revising those previously introduced (apart from Unit 1). This means that the basic 40+ phonemes are acquired quickly, and early reading skills develop rapidly. The programme develops pupils’ fluency and confidence by ensuring the readers they use to practice only include what they have already been taught.

Phase 1 supports pupil’s developing speaking and listening skills and linking of sounds and letters. Activities are divided into seven groups: Environmental sounds, Instrumental sounds. Body percussion, Rhythm and rhyme, Alliteration, Voice sounds, Oral blending and segmenting. The focus of this phase is on listening to and repeating sounds, rather than on directly reading words however as they become more confident and acquire more language pupils are introduced to simple letter-sound correspondences. As each set of letters is introduced, pupils are encouraged to use their new knowledge to sound out and blend words. For example, they will learn to blend the sounds s–a–t to make the word sat. This is in preparation for continuing on to Phase Two.

All staff undertake regular training in phonics to ensure consistency of approach across the school. Pupils are arranged according to their level of need and are assessed and regrouped accordingly as they progress through the term with a summative assessment half-termly. Phonics targeted interventions for those pupils whom require additional support are met through the ‘Words First Programme alongside Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the Bug Club Phonics Programme. This is only for pupils who are having difficulty accessing the phonological approach. Pupils who need support with pre-phonics and phonological awareness use this stand-alone programme specifically designed to teach them to read and write high frequency words. The scheme takes a carefully structured approach to learning to read and write, by linking picture, word recognition and comprehension skills in a series of graded steps.

IMPACT

The Bug Club Phonics programme provides regular assessment points (end of unit and end of phase) to support teachers in analysing their pupils’ progress. The wide range of assessment resources enable teachers and support staff to check pupils’ understanding systematically and frequently to ensure misconceptions are clarified quickly. Each unit ends with a game and each phase ends with an assessment to ensure knowledge is frequently recalled and consolidated. These games and assessments are weaved into the programme and are presented in a fun way to ensure pupils feel comfortable when developing their fluency and recalling their knowledge.

Summative Assessment shows whether they have met the expected standard of phonic knowledge for their age. Those pupils who do not meet the expected standard are supported through continuing daily phonics and additional group intervention to support them in reaching the expected standard.

Bug Club Resources