1. Understanding and preparing for the Year 1 screening check Willaston Primary School

2. The PISA 2009 Study ‘How Big is the Gap?’ highlights how far England has slipped behind other nations in reading. GCSE pupils' reading is more than a year behind the standard of their peers in Shanghai, Korea and Finland. Overall, in the last nine years, England has fallen in PISA’s international tables from 7th to 25th in reading. Why Now?

3. The Challenge Even when children make good progress in phonics in Reception, this is not always sustained into Year 1. Children are faced with……. Challenge of alternative ways of writing the same sound (rain,rein,reign) Two possible pronunciations (wind,minute,read) More challenging digraphs and trigraphs e.g. stream, spray

4. National Picture The DfE state that most schools use phonic methods to teach children to read, but only 27% use phonics systematically.

5. Evidence from the previous years Systematic phonics teaching has shown to significantly improve the standards of phonics here at Willaston and across the country. In the first year of the screening only 30% of our pupils passed the check compared to 58% nationally. The following year 80% of Willaston pupils passed compared to 69% nationally. This increased slightly again in 2015 with 83% of Willaston pupils passing the test compared to 77% nationally.

6. Teacher Research 72% of the pilot schools said that “pseudo-words” (nonsense or alien words) caused confusion for some, or most of their children. This is still true to some extent today which is why the children are exposed to these words on a daily basis

7. How will the be used? How will the results be used? School results do not form part of published league tables. We do display cohort data on our school website We will notify parents of their child’s results Data will be available on RAISE online for use by school, LA, and OfSTED as part of their inspections process

8. Why are nonsense words included? Nonsense words are included as they will be new to all pupils, so there won’t be a bias to those with a good vocabulary knowledge or visual memory of words.

9. What about SEN children? The check will be taken by as many pupils as possible Pupils who have no understanding of letter- sound correspondences will be removed from the process and parents will be informed. Schools will be expected to provide extra help for these children and any child who fails to meet the expected criteria will receive extra support also and will then be able to re-take the assessment in Year 2.

10. Example of Year 1 Words phone blank strap scribe

11. snemp blurst spron

12. How does the check work? The check will take place in the week of 13-17 th June. Your child will sit with a teacher he or she knows and be asked to read 40 words aloud. Your child may have read some of the words before, while others will be completely new. The check normally takes just a few minutes to complete and there is no time limit. If your child is struggling, the teacher will stop the check. The check is carefully designed not to be stressful for your child. The pass mark has been 32 out of 40, however the school is not notified of the pass mark until after the check has been carried out.

13. How can you help your child? Playing games online such as www.phonicsplay.co.uk and games on there such as Obb and Bob, Buried Treasure etc.. These games are often linked to the phonics phase that your child is in. www.phonicsplay.co.uk Using the pack that Miss Phenton sent home prior to February half term. This will be updated before the Easter holiday and tailored to your childs development. These packs will contain common sounds that your child finds tricky. Common sounds that the children find difficult are Magic e, ai (air), ew, ou, oi, ar. Make up nonsense words for your child to play games at home.