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Bug Club Phonics is revalidated by England’s Department for Education

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On 1 April 2021, the Department for Education in England released updated essential core criteria that DfE-validated systematic synthetic phonics (SPP) programmes must adhere to and announced that they were launching a validation process closing in March 2022.

We are delighted to say that the DfE has revalidated Bug Club Phonics in the first validation window! It has been deemed to meet all the criteria for an effective systematic synthetic phonics programme and so remains on the validated list of programmes.

See the list of validated programmes

A closer look at Bug Club Phonics

Bug Club Phonics offers schools a complete systematic synthetic phonics programme. It:

  • Features daily lessons from the start of Reception
  • Teaches the main grapheme-phoneme correspondences of English in a clearly defined, incremental sequence
  • Gets children reading and spelling from very early on
  • Includes blending for reading and segmenting for spelling activities
  • Provides opportunities for children to practise and apply known phoneme-grapheme correspondences for spelling through dictation of sounds, words and sentences
  • Features language sessions that teach ‘tricky’ common exception words
  • Provides resources that support the teaching of lower-case and capital letters correctly, with clear start and finish points
  • Includes direct teaching sessions, with extensive teacher-child interaction and involves a multi-sensory approach
  • Has reading texts that closely match what has been taught up to that point
  • Includes assessments and support for the lowest 20%
  • Provides full guidance for teachers to support the effective delivery of the programme
  • Provides remote learning capabilities via eBooks, allocatable teaching screens and phonics games.

Underpinning all of that is its proven pedagogy – it was written by the authors of the Clackmannanshire Report and provides the perfect foundations for fluent independent reading.

New Bug Club books are coming in 2021!

As if all of that wasn’t enough good news, we are also adding new phonics books to our Bug Club Phonics subscriptions! Along with new non-fiction Phase 2 titles, we are adding to our Phase 4 and Phase 5 books.

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Find out more about Bug Club Phonics for international schools and if you like what you see, take a free trial today!

If you’d like to discuss your school needs in more detail, contact your local Pearson consultant to find out how Bug Club Phonics could work in your school.

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Suzie Williams

Suzie Williams is part of the international schools team at Pearson. A graduate of the universities of Salford and Strathclyde in the UK, she has worked in education for over 20 years, is a former primary school governor, heads up the Pearson international schools blog and produces and directs the annual Pearson International School Leaders Conferences.