When her school decided it needed to adopt a systematic synthetic phonics scheme, Helen Pinnington was reluctant about the benefits – and as she researched further, she became even less convinced
When it comes to phonics, at my school, we’ve always enjoyed the flexibility of combining Letters and Sounds with Jolly Phonics, and creatively mixing it up in our own way. On the whole, our children are engaged and having fun, and the approach really works for us.
While we hoped that we’d be able to continue this way, we recognised that we needed to reconsider our position, and adopt a systematic synthetic phonics scheme (SSP) due to a few factors.
Our data over the past few years has overall been positive, however, the attainment picture post-pandemic has heightened our concerns and, currently, children have gaps all over the place.
We also have an Ofsted inspection looming: upon re-reading the government guidance, we particularly took note of the phrasing that “schools are strongly encouraged” to use a scheme. Ultimately, we didn’t feel like we had a choice - it takes a brave school to be nonconformist in these circumstances.
We are, admittedly, behind the curve: other schools will have been using a specific SSP scheme for years. No one likes change, but this particular shift in teaching is a big one, not to mention costly. Some of these phonics schemes are absolutely eye-watering in terms of price and, like most schools, we have a very tight budget. We felt we needed to get it right.
Anecdotal feedback from other schools made us even more cautious: many jumped too soon and regretted it. Unfortunately, they had committed large amounts of money before realising that their new SSP scheme was no better, if not worse, than what they already had in place
We spent weeks intensively researching, talking and trying to decide. There are so many options to consider - 23 SSP schemes have been validated by the Department for Education.
So, where did we begin? Together, the reading and phonics lead and I considered our needs as a school and came up with some key considerations and questions to inform our decision.
We identified the following as important:
How much does the scheme cost? Does it offer value for money?
How will the new scheme align with our existing reading books?
How well might the scheme engage the children?
Can the programme successfully cater for the learning needs of our key stage 2 children?
What are the time and staffing commitments?
Does the scheme offer appropriate activities for nursery-aged children?
Armed with these questions, we set out to find out more about the different schemes: we attended webinars and went on visits to see what other schools were doing.
So, what did we find out? Well, at the end of this process, I still feel sceptical and question whether some of these schemes, which I know are commercial, are really as effective as they claim to be. If I am honest, I’ve been very reluctant to select any one of them.
Why? Because I can’t help feeling disappointed that this dry and formal style of teaching is being pushed upon us.
To my horror, workbooks, flashcards and formulaic teaching seem to be the common factors in all of these schemes. To my mind, this is completely in conflict with the principles of early years teaching and does not chime with how I would like to begin to engage our young children in reading.
I can’t help feeling worried by the direction we are moving in. While I accept that phonics lessons must maintain focus and a certain pace, I think we are in danger of going too far with this.
Finding ways to jazz up essential, but potentially dry curriculum content is what good teachers have always done. Surely, we need to retain some of this creativity in our teaching of phonics?
Ultimately, that is what we decided to focus on. We picked what we considered to be the best of a bad bunch and are now working on doing what we can to make it more engaging.
In the meantime, I await some common sense to prevail in the next set of government guidance.
Helen Pinnington is early years foundation lead at St Thomas More’s Catholic Primary School in Bedhampton, Hampshire
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