At Lower Darwen Primary School, we aim to provide systematic phonics teaching that gives the children the best possible start in reading and writing.  Our approach enables children to start building their phonic knowledge from the start of their school life, with the expectation that they will become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage 1. 

At Lower Darwen we follow the systematic approach laid out in Floppy Phonics Sounds and Letters.  Staff must ensure that in their room they are only using the ‘Floppy Phonic’ resources (e.g. flashcards, sound mats, wall friezes. This will aid smooth transition from each year group.  Please speak with the Phonics Lead if you need any resources replacing.  There is a folder on Staff shared with lots resources available.

Whole-class teaching of phonics is planned in accordance to the Floppy Phonics scheme.  This format includes the revisit, review, teach, apply, assessment.  To ensure the children are constantly recapping on previously taught sounds.  All plans are provided on Oxford Owl, Teachers can adapt these as they wish to meet the needs of their class.

Click here to read how we teach phonics.    Click here to read about phonics assessment and SEND.

The aims of objectives of our phonics programme

• To teach children aural discrimination, phonemic awareness and rhyme awareness
• To encourage good spelling
• To encourage repetition and consolidation, so that spelling becomes automatic
• To encourage the children to segment and blend
• To teach the children strategies to retain tricky words
• To encourage the children to use their phonic knowledge in all areas of the curriculum
• To differentiate phonics so all pupils are given sufficient challenge at a level suitable to them

Our expectations

We want our children to:

• learn to read and write all 44 graphemes in the English language.
• learn to remember the common exception words.
• experience teaching of phonics which is lively, interactive and investigative.
• apply their phonic skills in all curriculum areas.
• become confident readers.

We want our staff to:

• model good practice in phonics.
• use the floppy phonics scheme.
• work alongside their parallel class teacher to ensure the children in each year group are having the same experience in phonics.
• keep up to date records of assessment on Phonics Tracker.

The school's phonics policy can be downloaded below: