Phonics

Aims (intent) of phonics

At Brunel Field Primary School, we use Unlocking Letters and Sounds as our systematic synthetic phonics programme. Unlocking Letters and Sounds (ULS) follows the progression of the Letters and sounds framework, with the addition of some Ks1 National Curriculum objectives for reading and writing.

Through ULS, children learn the 150+ graphemes that are represented by the 44 phonemes of the English language along with common exception words (CEWs) in a planned and progressive way. This is achieved through daily phonics lessons and reading practise using fully decodable books matched to children's phonic knowledge.

What phonics look like at our school (implementation)

We begin teaching phonics in the first few weeks of term 1 in Reception and children make rapid progress in their reading journey. Children begin to learn the main sounds heard in the English Language and how they can be represented, as well as learning CEWs for phases 2, 3 and 4. They use these sounds to read and write simple words, captions and sentences. Children leave Reception being able to apply the phonemes taught within phases 2, 3 and 4.

At Brunel Field we aim to ‘keep up’ not ‘catch up’ so children are regularly assessed and supported to keep up through bespoke 1-1 interventions. These include GPC recognition and blending and segmenting interventions. The lowest attaining 20% o/ pupils are closely monitored to ensure these interventions are having an impact on children's reading. At Brunel Field Primary School, we promote a ‘phonics first’ approach. Children take home texts that are very closely matched to a child's current phonic knowledge so that every child can experience success in their reading. Children are heard reading at school by adults either 1-1 or in small guided reading groups.

For further details, please see the Unlocking Letters and Sounds progression document.