Workshop empowers parents to support learning at home

Phonics Curriculum Leader Miss Marrows recently led an informative and engaging Phonics and Reading Workshop for parents and carers of children in Key Stage 1.

The session aimed to equip families with the tools and knowledge they need to support their children’s early reading journey at home.

During the workshop, Miss Marrows explained how children are introduced to tricky words that don’t follow regular phonetic patterns and demonstrated how to identify the parts of the words that make them challenging. This insight helps parents better understand the strategies used in our lessons and how they can reinforce this learning at home.

A key focus of the session was the importance of grapheme recognition and how this supports children’s reading development throughout Year 1 and 2. Parents were introduced to our “Grow the Code” approach, where pupils’ progress is tracked visually—building excitement and motivation as their individual charts grow with each new grapheme learned.

To further support reading at home, parents were given the opportunity to explore a selection of books aligned with each phonics phase. These resources help ensure consistency between school and home reading experiences.

The workshop also covered the progression of phonics teaching across the year, memorable learning strategies used in the classroom, and ways parents can nurture a lifelong love of reading in their children.

Miss Marrows recently delivered a similar workshop for parents and carers of children in EYFS, ensuring that families across the early years are supported in developing confident, enthusiastic young readers.

We would like to thank all the parents and carers who attended and look forward to working together to inspire a love of reading in every child.

Miss Marrows said: “The workshops are a great opportunity to share with parents and carers how we teach phonics and reading, and how they can support their child at home.

Exploring what their children will be learning across Key Stage 1 and how we make lessons engaging and memorable, and how we work together to foster a lifelong love of reading.

I recently held a similar session for our Early Years families, and it’s been wonderful to see such enthusiasm and support from our school community.”

Principal Rachel Clarke said: “I’m incredibly grateful to Miss Marrows and our dedicated staff for the time and care they put into running these workshops. Their commitment to making learning engaging and accessible for every child is what makes our school community so special.

I’d also like to thank our parents and carers for their continued support — it’s through this strong partnership that we can truly help our children thrive.”