Dear parents,

The phonics screening check (PSC) is a statutory reading check which all Year 1 children will take during the week commencing 12th June 2023. The check is designed to assess if each child has reached the age-appropriate standard of decoding by the end of Year 1.

Year 2 children that didn’t pass the Phonics Screening Check in June 2022, or did not take the assessment in June 2022, have had additional phonics support during this academic year, and will retake the phonics screening check during the week commencing 12th June 2023.

As before, during the assessment children will read 40 words – 20 real words and 20 alien words. They will be encouraged to ‘say the special friends, Fred talk and then read the word.’ I regularly listen to children read and I use previous phonic screening checks to assess children, so the format of the assessment in June will be very familiar to children.

Please see the attached pdf which provides further information about the phonics screening check. In addition to this, I have scheduled a phonics screening check meeting, on Tuesday 16th May 2023 at 9:15am, where I will provide additional information regarding the assessment. Please put the date in your diary and try to attend, the meeting should last no longer than 30 minutes.

During the May half-term holiday, it would be wonderful if you could continue to support your child to review all of the speed sounds they have learnt, read both real and alien words and also their RWI book. I will also add a few extra activities to the  Google Classrooms to try over the holidays.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about the PSC then please do not hesitate to contact me.

PSC 2023 Information for parents

Kind regards

Maria Sullivan

Assistant Headteacher, EYFS Lead and RWI Lead