Phonics

At St Agnes, we use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds phonics programme.

The free resources on this parents page will help you support your child with saying their sounds and writing their letters. There are also some useful videos so you can see how they are taught at school and feel confident about supporting their reading at home.

If you have any questions, please speak to child's teacher.

Intent

Our intent is to provide all pupils with a systematic, consistent and high-quality approach to early reading through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised phonics programme. We chose Little Wandle because it is a systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) programme validated by the Department for Education and provides a clear, carefully sequenced approach to developing children’s phonological knowledge, decoding skills and reading fluency. Our aim is for every child to become a confident and successful early reader, regardless of their starting point, background or individual needs. We recognise that secure phonics knowledge is fundamental to children’s wider reading development and therefore prioritise early identification and targeted support for pupils who require additional practice.

Implementation

Little Wandle is implemented consistently across the whole school, following the programme’s progression and sequence to ensure that new GPCs and words are introduced systematically and that previously taught knowledge is regularly revisited. Daily phonics sessions provide opportunities for children to practise blending and segmenting, apply their phonics knowledge when reading and develop increasing accuracy and fluency. Children read books matched closely to the sounds they have been taught, enabling them to experience success and develop confidence as readers.

Assessment is used regularly to identify gaps in children’s phonics knowledge and inform targeted intervention. Pupils who are not yet secure receive additional opportunities to practise and consolidate their learning. Staff receive ongoing support to ensure consistency in the delivery of the programme, and phonics assessment information is monitored to identify trends, strengths and areas for further development.

Impact

The implementation of Little Wandle has contributed to improved outcomes in early reading and phonics. Our Year 1 Phonics Screening Check outcomes increased from 67% in 2025 to 75% in 2026, demonstrating a positive improvement in the proportion of pupils securing the expected standard. This represents an 8 percentage-point increase and shows that an increasing number of pupils are developing the secure decoding skills needed to become successful readers. Our outcomes are also slowly closing the gap to national outcomes, demonstrating progress towards our ambition for more pupils to achieve the expected standard in phonics. We will continue to use assessment and targeted support to address remaining gaps, particularly for pupils who are not yet secure, so that all children have the strongest possible foundations for reading.