At Rampton Primary School, we use Jolly Phonics to teach phonics from Foundation Stage upwards. Once our children have completed Jolly Phonics Book 3, and their phonics knowledge is secure, spelling lessons will be taught where the children will be taught spelling rules and be given more challenging common exception words. 

Children are taught phonemes, the smallest unit of sound, such as c-a-t in 'cat' and s-i-t in 'sit'. 

In other words, we find digraphs: this is when two letters represent one new sound, such as c and h making 'ch' as in 'chop'. 

A trigraph is similar in that we have three letters representing one new sound, such as a, i and r making 'air'. 

Reading books are organised into book banded colour groups. Pupils can select books from their band colours to read at home and in school. Staff regularly assess pupils' reading through reading comprehension activities, guided reading sessions, reading across the curriculum and individual reading times. Progress through the bands is carefully monitored to ensure that pupils are challenged appropriately. 

Those children who may struggle to access phonics are supported through interventions. We observe and conduct regular informal assessments to identify pupils who may have problems with their working memory and therefore find phonics difficult. We recognise the importance of a child's cognitive load and support children to concentrate on intrinsic load, removing as much extraneous load as possible when necessary. We use chunking, pre- and post-teaching activities, 'worked examples' and a growth mindset approach to support all our pupils. 

Phonics Screen Check

The Phonics Screen Check is a quick, statutory assessment for pupils in Year 1, to confirm whether they have met expected phonics decoding standards.  There are 40 words, split into two sections of 20 words each, with a range of real and 'alien' words to decode. This test normally takes around 5 to 10 minutes to complete and is done by an adult the child knows well, such as their class teacher. 

In 2026, 87.5% of our pupils met the expected standard. 

Where a pupil does not meet the expected standard, they receive support in reading and word recognition and will resit the check in Year 2.