Rocket Phonics First Steps Case Study: Woodlands Primary

About the Nursery School

Woodlands Nursery is part of the EYFS provision at Woodlands Primary School, offering a continuous education pathway for children aged three who join the school in Foundation 1. Most children attend a daily morning or afternoon session, although a few are funded for 30 hours a week and do a full day. About 60% of the children are EAL, and for many of these, attending nursery is their first experience of an education setting. The school’s catchment is in an area of high economic deprivation, and the percentage of PP children at the school is more than double the national average in England.

We spoke to Laura, the school’s phonics lead and EYFS leader, about their experience of adopting Rocket Phonics First Steps to support their literacy and phonics provision.

Why did the school decide to adopt Rocket Phonics First Steps?

Prior to adopting the programme, nursery practitioners were loosely following Letters and Sounds, which they supplemented with other schemes on an ad hoc basis. While staff are confident and experienced, they were looking for greater consistency and alignment with their validated SSP, Rocket Phonics.

Despite most children starting Reception with very low baselines and delays in speech, language and communication, 90% of Y1 children met the expected standard in their most recent phonics screening check. While staff are confident and experienced in delivering a high quality and ambitious phonics curriculum, Laura believes that adopting Rocket Phonics has played a large part in their success.

First Steps offered consistency, progression and allegiance to the pedagogical principles that inform Rocket Phonics. It is also more than ‘just’ a phonics scheme: it’s an holistic approach to developing children’s language, nurturing a love of books and reading, and developing their phonological awareness. 

Laura had high hopes that First Steps would have a similar impact on children’s learning in their nursery setting.

What’s their experience of using First Steps?

It’s inclusive: all children, regardless of their starting point, are able to participate in the phonics sessions, and have made gains in their phonemic awareness. “What children get from it is different depending on their ability and what they can access. … some children might come away being able to articulate the sound correctly, which they couldn't before. And then you might get some children who can recognise the grapheme and say what it is.”

Some children have made astonishing gains, mastering digraphs that wouldn’t previously have been taught until F2. “I was surprised by how many of the sounds that they knew including some of the digraphs that we wouldn't normally teach until F2. I was really surprised by how they'd picked them up and how eager they were to tell me what they were as well.”

Children’s vocabulary has increased since adopting First Steps, too. “…we make a lot of the vocabulary, because that's what our children really struggle with. We feel that the programme extends their vocabulary really well.”

This means that children are now moving into Reception with firm foundations for reaching their Early Learning Goals. Laura attributes this to the consistency of their approach, and the availability of all their resources ‘in one place’. “…it's just the consistency really of having those lesson plans to follow, compared with … Letters and Sounds which were just the bare bones. You had to add a lot of the stuff in yourself, whereas this is day by day and week by week.”

Using the same programme across F1 and F2 means that they’re able to better support children working significantly below expectations in Reception, either because they have SEND or due to their recent arrival in the country. Using First Steps with these children allows them to have the same high quality phonics provision as those following the Reception programme, and transition seamlessly to the core programme when they are ready.

Final thoughts

Laura is delighted with the impact of adopting First Steps. “We like the scheme so much,” she says.  

We love the fact that it's a phonics programme and a language programme combined, that all children will get something from it regardless of where they are developmentally, and that it really prepares them for the reception curriculum.

They’re now spreading the word by recommending it to other preschool settings in their area, too.  “…there's nothing else really out there that's like it. I'm always promoting it.”

Adopting the programme has clearly been a successful decision for Woodlands Nursery. First Steps matches their experience of using Rocket Phonics, delivering the high quality support and resources which schools associate with the programme.