Phonics at Christ Church

Phonics across Foundation Stage and Key Stage One

Reception and Year 1 Reading Meeting Presentation 

At Christ Church, phonics is taught in Reception and Year 1 daily through whole class sessions. As a school, our phonics teaching follows Bug Club Phonics teaching programme. 

In Reception class we teach from Phase 2 to Phase 4 across the academic year. In Year 1 we recap all of this learning before moving onto Phase 5 and in Year 2 children develop confidence with the spelling patterns in Phase 5 and progress onto the spelling and grammar requirements of the Year 2 National Curriculum.

Class teachers regularly assess progress being made by individual children and additional support is given to individuals and groups where required. The Literary Curriculum, which we use as the basis for our English lessons, further embeds the phonics learning in each lesson. 

Helpful Links to support you and your child:

Bug Club Phonics log in page: https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk/login?c=0

Free phonics games: https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/resources

Helping your child with Phonics - a video for parents from Bug Club https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dCRWLLNXPo&t=44s

Year 1 Phonics Screening

The National Phonics Screening check is a compulsory assessment that all children in the UK take at the end of Year 1. It is designed to make sure children have developed phonic decoding skills to an appropriate standard.

The Phonics Screening check is made of up of 40 words, 20 ‘real words’ and 20 ‘pseudo words’. We call these pseudo words 'alien words', and children will practice reading these in their phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1.  

During the assessment, each child will read the words to their class teacher who will note their responses. Any children who do not reach the expected standard will receive additional phonics support in Year 2.