Work in Schools:

This has included:

• Auditing phonics provision throughout a school.

'Thank you for your visit and being so informative as usual. It was very helpful and we can move forward with our phonics.'
Deputy Headteacher, Ealing

'It was wonderful to have all your advice and time. Thanks again for coming in.'
 Assistant Headteacher, Ealing

• Joint planning with teachers in 1 year group to help them put together an effective weekly plan for the discrete teaching of phonics for the following week. This provides the opportunity to discuss key issues related to planning and gives staff a model on which to base future plans. This support has been rated particularly highly by teachers.
• Joint observations of phonics teaching sessions with literacy subject leaders/headteachers. This trains senior managers how to evaluate the quality of phonics teaching. It also supports practitioners in improving their teaching.

‘I found it very useful when Lesley observed my class and assessed where they were and what their next step should be.’
YR teacher, Ealing

• Monitoring of phonics planning with literacy subject leader and/or headteacher. This enables senior managers to identify effective planning for the teaching of phonics.

• Joint action planning with the literacy co-ordinator/subject leader to identify the next steps towards the full implementation of effective phonics teaching.

'Thank you so much for working with me yesterday. I learnt a lot and now feel much more confident to oversee phonics.'
Literacy Subject Leader, Ealing

• Leading phonics workshops for parents/carers (evenings or afternoons). This improves their understanding of how phonics is taught in school and how they can best help their children at home.

‘We would like to thank you for an excellent evening which was both informative and enjoyable.’
Headteacher, South Buckinghamshire

Impact of Training and Support on the Teaching of Phonics:

'After attending one of your phonics training sessions, we changed the way we taught phonics and as a result we performed significantly better in the phonics screening check compared to the previous year. I just wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU to you as I feel so much more confident in teaching phonics and the training has provided benefits to our school.'
Teacher, Bucks

‘I now teach it explicitly and daily and systematically.’
Y1 teacher, Ealing

‘I enjoy teaching it and have a much better subject knowledge.’
Y2 teacher, Ealing

‘A wider range of phonic games are now used making it more fun.’
Y2 teacher, Ealing

‘It has improved my assessment of children with spelling difficulties and we are now better at identifying what support is appropriate.’
Y4 teacher, Ealing

Impact of Training and Support on Children’s Progress:

‘We found that the children have definitely made great progress this year. All 24 children in my class can sound out all letters and the majority can read and spell the high frequency words. Parents also found the sound button cards very useful to use at home, and we saw real progress when using phonic games in class (sound buttons, phoneme frame, fans etc). There is also noticeable progress in the children’s level of reading and writing. They are much more confident using their phonic knowledge.’
Gursharan, YR teacher, Dairy Meadow Primary School, Southall

‘Spellings have improved. Children have more confidence to sound out unknown words’.
Y2 teacher, Ealing

‘The confidence of the children I work with has improved a lot.’
TA, Ealing

‘Children show enjoyment of sessions. Games are fun and children seem enthusiastic.’
TA working in Y2, 3 & 4, Ealing