Intention
At St. George’s Cathedral Catholic Primary School, we recognise the importance of reading throughout each child’s every day and future life. It is essential to everyday life and is critical to all aspects of learning. We want children to develop a love of reading and to become resilient and independent learners. Our intent is to encourage children to begin to read fluently but also have the skills needed to read unknown words by teaching them skills to decode.

Implementation
At St George’s Cathedral Catholic Primary School, we know the importance of early reading. Therefore, children begin Phonics sessions in Nursery. From Reception through to Year 2 children are taught Phonics through the Little Wandle scheme of work, which implements a synthetic, systematic Phonics programme. All staff across the school are trained in the Little Wandle programme. Therefore, Phonics sessions can be delivered with maximum effect.

Teachers identify gaps through daily assessment within lessons and deliver daily keep-up sessions to ensure all children make good progress in Phonics. Where necessary, children participate in daily catch-up sessions to fill broader gaps and ensure rapid progress. Half-termly assessment takes place to identify gaps and progress made.

Home reading books are tailored to children’s phonic knowledge to enable them to practise the sounds they are secure in. Children from Nursery to Year 2 read Big Cat Phonics books which are linked to their Phonic knowledge.

We are an inclusive school that understands that children are individuals and have different learning needs. As a school, we assess children throughout to ensure that once explicit Phonics sessions stop in Year 2, children who have Phonetic gaps still develop their learning through tailored interventions to fill gaps and ensure children leave us as confident and fluent readers.

Impact
Children at our school are keen and eager to read due to their love of reading. It is evident to see the confidence in how they use their Phonic skills when reading by segmenting and blending words to read and chunking up longer words. Due to regular reading and daily Phonics sessions, children develop their fluency, which supports their comprehension skills.  Children are confident readers and show good levels of engagement and enjoyment during Phonics sessions. They make good progress in their Phonics learning and, due to keeping up and catch-up sessions, staff have a good knowledge of each child.