Welcome to Foundation Stage!

Here you will find lots of information on each class page about what happens during our school day and all about our termly topics and the special books we will share. Look at our photo gallery to see all the amazing things that we get up to! 

On Friday 24th February we enjoyed our first Little Sparklers Playgroup in school! The children enjoyed playing with the different toys on offer and sharing books with their grown ups.

The end of the session saw the children listening to Dear Zoo and then everyone joining in with a variety of Nursery Rhymes.

See you all at the next playgroup session!

Phonics in F1

In F1 children take part in small group sessions with their key worker every day for 15 minutes. Phase 1 is taught to F1 children from their start date through a range of activities such as listening games to discriminate environmental, voice and instrumental sounds and rhyme, alliteration and rhythm games. The children also have lots of experience with oral segmenting and blending (hearing d-o-g makes dog) throughout the day. 

Phonics in F2

F2 phonics is taught daily for 20 minutes a day.  Sparken Hill Academy follow one of the DfE's validated synthetic systematic phonics (SSP) program called 'Bug Club' to teach phonics. The scheme introduces a new sound daily to the children, following a repetitive structure, embedding reading, spelling and writing skills daily. 

Targeted phonics interventions happen throughout the day to support those children who are working below age related expectations. A robust tracking system is used to ensure we monitor pupil progress in phonics.

Phonics & Reading: Parent/Carer Information Workshop

On the 8th February we hosted a parent/carer workshop: "Phonics & Reading in Foundation and Key Stage One" to inform parents about....

• What is phonics?
• Our schools DfE approved phonics programme.
• The six phases within phonics and when they are taught.
• Phonic terminology and skills.
• How to use phonic (Decodable) books & support children with it at home.
• End of year expectations.
• Phonic screening test.
• Resources to support children with phonics and reading beyond the classroom.

Reading at Sparken Hill Academy

We share with parents/carers the importance of reading and the understanding of how a love of reading can be celebrated both at home and at school! At school we talk about 2 types of books: phonics books and a reading for enjoyment book. We ask you to let your child read their phonics book to you at a suitable time of day and then ask that a reading for enjoyment book (this could be a bed time story) is an adult reading to a child. A love of reading comes from being read to frequently as sharing this special ' book time' with an adult is an enjoyable experience. 

We allocate Bug Club books to your child, based on what our assessments show they know and the book your child takes home will include the sounds/tricky words they know and can decode themselves. Your child will move through the book bands as they progress through the phonics scheme.  

Your child will bring home a reading book and diary in their book bag when they start school. Teachers encourage children to read with parents/carers daily. Parents are asked to write in the reading diaries a comment of how children read. We have a reading rewards scheme in foundation stage, children who are daily readers get the oppertunity to win a prize on a Friday!

Parents have access to 'Bug Club' on the Pearson Active Learn site:

Each child has a bookmark in the back of their reading diary with their own log in details. When logging in you will find..... 

-Reading books which are matched to children's phonics ability

-Phonics Games to practise grapheme-phoneme correspondence, segmenting and blending 

Log in here: https://login.pearson.com/v1/piapi/piui/signin?client_id=dN4bOBG0sGO9c9HADrifwQeqma5vjREy

We ask that a variety of physical/online books are read by your children, as they are both important.