The phonics screening check takes place for all children who have reached the end of Year 1* and is designed to confirm whether pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard. It will identify pupils who need extra help to improve their decoding skills.

The check consists of 20 real words and 20 pseudo-words that a pupil reads aloud to the teacher. In 2025-26, pupils needed to attain 31 or more words to achieve the phonics screening check.

* There are some exceptions and full details of these can be found on the Department for Education website.

Our results are consistently above the national average.