Due to the cohort of our pupil intake, we recognise that our pupils have significant gaps in learning resulting in reading most often being a barrier to accessing the curriculum. We are passionate about understanding that all pupils need the opportunity to succeed academically despite what difficulties they have experienced previously. We want our pupils to be provided with the basic skills to be able to use decoding as an approach to learning how to read. We believe that phonics is a key strategy which pupils can learn the skills to apply to their decoding of words. At The Levett School, pupils access phonics from Key Stage 1 into Key Stage 3. This looks very different across Key Stages; phonics is referred to as ‘Decoding’ at our school in order to break down any previous connotations of this subject being targeted for younger pupils.
Our lessons follow the usual revisit/review, teach, practice and apply but is personalised for those individual assessed needs to ensure rapid progress whilst maintaining challenge for our pupils. Blending is used as a prime approach for reading whereas segmenting is used to support spelling. Decoding at The Levett School has become a key priority to close the gaps missed in the early years and to provide pupils with a tool in the real world of work.
The Levett School follow a Letters and Sounds programme following individual pupil assessments for recognition and writing of sounds from Phase 2 through to 5. Decoding happens on a daily basis, following the same structure. We are fortunate enough to be able to provide decoding sessions as one to one which means lesson plans are personalised to pupil needs and tracking of progress is more effective. Expert staff delivering the programme have a small network where they will ask each other for support regarding strategies to support pupils.
At The Levett School, we recognise that Decoding needs to be very bespoke and staff need to ensure that resources provided are not age appropriate to ensure pupils engage. More recently, we have purchased the Twinkle programme, which provides editable resources for staff to edit and adapt according to the needs of their pupil. This programme is a DfE approved package. Pupils use sound mats in their lessons throughout the day as well as keyword lists to embed, practise and apply what is taught during decoding lessons. Decoding lessons are taught in a quiet area of school as this also involves a key focus on spoken language. As pupils progress through the phases, they grow in confidence and experience to apply what they already know whilst using key vocabulary such as: phoneme, grapheme, digraph and trigraph. Later on in the programme, pupils are taught about alternative ways of representing the same sound.
Through our baseline assessments of pupils given a place at The Levett School, we provide instant access to Decoding lessons so all pupils can begin to access this provision as soon as possible.
Attainment is measured by individual pupil tracking grids which are used to assess every half term for a summative assessment but form part of a teacher’s formative assessment in their week to week planning, teaching and assessing of their pupils. The books we have in school to support early readers are the Collins Big Cat collection and these are linked to phases pupils are working within. They also provide another opportunity for pupils to apply their skills. The impact of Decoding in school can be seen in Decoding and books across curriculum areas in school, progress through the Big Cat scheme, discussions with the pupils and the assessment grids, which highlight where progress is made.
