Curriculum
Phonics
Curriculum intent, implementation, and impact
Curriculum content
At HLC Primary, we believe that every child deserves the opportunity to become a happy, fluent reader and writer, no matter their background, needs or ability. We are exceptionally proud of our bespoke systematic synthetic phonics programme, which lies at the heart of our commitment to ensuring every child achieves success.
Our phonics journey begins in our Nursery, where children develop essential early phonics skills through the seven aspects of Phase 1 phonics: environmental sounds, instrumental sounds, body percussion, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, voice sounds, and oral blending and segmenting. These fun, engaging activities are taught throughout the week, laying the vital foundations children need to become confident readers and writers.
We also recognise the importance of strong fine motor skills for writing, so we incorporate Dough Disco sessions in our Nursery and Early Years Foundation Stage. These lively, hands-on activities help develop children’s hand strength and coordination, preparing them for holding a pencil and forming letters accurately.
Through our carefully designed phonics scheme, we systematically teach children to hear the sounds in words (phonemes) and represent them using letters (graphemes). Our engaging, high-quality resources help children develop and secure a deep understanding of grapheme–phoneme correspondence, giving them the confidence and skills to apply their knowledge across the whole curriculum.
Daily discrete phonics lessons take place for a minimum of 25 minutes throughout the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1, with additional sessions in Key Stage 2 where needed. Each lesson follows a clear structure of Review, Teach, Practise and Apply, ensuring children continually consolidate and build on their knowledge so they can apply it with confidence in different contexts. We know that strong, accurate decoding is one of the biggest indicators of a skilled, fluent reader — that’s why phonics skills such as encoding and decoding are reinforced throughout all modelled reading and writing across our school. Our aim is simple: for children to know more, remember more and use these skills with increasing independence.
Phonics at HLC is taught to whole classes in Reception and Year 1, with carefully selected small groups receiving targeted support to help them keep up rather than catch up. As children move into Year 2, they are grouped according to their stage of learning to ensure any remaining gaps are swiftly closed.
We have a robust and well-structured system to make sure every child takes home books matched precisely to their phonic knowledge, so they can decode every word and grow in confidence as readers. We also recognise the importance of reading and re-reading to build fluency, accuracy and enjoyment.
We know that great teaching is the key to great outcomes. That’s why our teachers receive high-quality, ongoing training, so they feel confident and equipped to deliver consistent, inspiring phonics teaching that secures outstanding results for our children.
At HLC Primary, we are proud that our approach to phonics gives every child the very best start on their reading and writing journey — opening the door to a lifelong love of books and learning.
