phonics | Schools Week

Williamson announces autumn 2021 phonics screening check

An autumn phonics screening check will take place again this year, the education secretary has announced. Gavin Williamson told the Festival of Education this afternoon that as was the case in 2020, the check will be held in the autumn “so that any pupils who need support with phonics are spotted early”. The check was […]

Autumn phonics check 2020: What schools need to know

The government has confirmed details of this year’s autumn phonics screening check, following the cancellation of the test in June. The Standards and Testing Agency announced in July that schools would be asked to administer a previous version of the check in the autumn term to year 2 pupils, who would normally have sat the […]

STA plans autumn phonics check for year 2s who missed June test

Schools will be asked to administer a phonics screening check for year 2 pupils in the autumn, after the June test was missed because of coronavirus. The Standards and Testing Agency announced in its most recent update for schools that it is proposing an autumn check to avoid all year 2 pupils having to take […]

Government’s ‘obsession’ with phonics is driven by need to help working-class white boys

The underperformance of white working-class boys in England’s education system is what has driven the government’s “obsession” with reading and phonics, the schools minister has said. Nick Gibb told a Westminster Hall debate today that a belief that children’s educational background has more of an impact than their social or cultural background was the “essential philosophy” […]

Phonics check 2018 pass mark announced

The pass mark for the phonics screening check will remain at 32 this year, the Department for Education has announced. It is the seventh year in a row that the test’s pass mark has been set at this level. Details of the pass mark have been published today, along with test materials, scoring guidance and […]

The reception year isn’t all about learning to read

The UK’s dogmatic approach to teaching reading does a disservice to the different ways and speeds at which young children learn, writes Jan Dubiel Ofsted’s recent Bold Beginnings report was controversial for several reasons, not least because it appeared to suggest that the core purpose of the reception year is learning how to read. Literacy […]

Nick Gibb is wrong: PIRLS data does not support synthetic phonics

The schools minister is looking at the results of a major international reading test wrong, and his dogmatic insistence on teaching children to read with phonics is a sham, argues the NEU’s Kevin Courtney Overwhelmed by problems of teacher supply and faced with rising evidence of the effects of funding cuts, it’s understandable that Nick […]

Schools are streaming the youngest children by phonics ability

Schools are using phonics to divide primary classes into ability streams – and pupils born in summer are paying the price. Phonics teaching involves six phases in which children learn how to read and spell using progressively harder phonemes and graphemes – sounds and the letters that represent them. But the National Education Union has […]

FSM pupils falling away in phonics

The achievement gap in phonics has grown between pupils qualifying for free school meals and their wealthier peers, government data has revealed. In this summer’s exams, 68 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals met the expected standard in phonics, compared with 84 per cent of all other pupils. This marked a one-percentage-point […]