Every Aurora primary now at or above national average for phonics.

Aurora Academies Trust’s approach to early reading is featured in Tes magazine today, in an article by Chief Executive James Freeston on how the trust has narrowed the phonics gap for disadvantaged pupils.

In 2019, none of Aurora’s schools met the national average in the Year 1 phonics screening check. In 2026, each of its primary schools has matched or exceeded the national average of 82 per cent. Aurora’s disadvantaged pupils are now 11 points ahead of disadvantaged pupils nationally, and just seven points behind non-disadvantaged pupils nationally. Nationally, only 68 per cent of disadvantaged pupils met the expected standard this year, a gap of 17 percentage points.

The results have been achieved in challenging circumstances. Most of the trust’s seven schools and nurseries serve coastal communities in the South East with above-average levels of deprivation, and five have free school meal rates above the national average.

A single approach to reading

In 2019, each Aurora school chose its own approach to teaching reading, which led to variation in the time given to reading and in when phonics began in Reception. The trust replaced this with one aligned reading curriculum from nursery to key stage 1, grounded in the Simple View of Reading that informs the Department for Education’s reading framework. Timetables were planned backwards, giving reading the time it needs first, and every school adopted the same phonics programme.

Key features of the approach include:

• Daily phonics teaching in groups based on the sounds children know rather than their age, with reassessment as often as weekly so that any child falling behind is spotted early
• Daily supported reading for Year 1 pupils, and for Year 2 pupils working below the expected level, in groups of six or fewer led by a trained adult
• Teaching assistants redeployed each morning to support phonics and reading sessions, with all staff trained in the approach
• A reading coordinator in every school, supported by a trust-wide reading leader
• Data on every child updated six times a year, so the trust can respond quickly with extra training or school visits where progress is slower than expected

Consistency for every child

Mr Freeston writes that the fundamentals of early reading are an entitlement for every child, and that this should not change from one school to the next. For children facing disadvantage, who have fewer chances to make up lost ground outside school, variation in provision is never neutral. The trust’s aim is that a child’s chance of becoming a confident reader depends less on which school, classroom or postcode they happen to have.

He is clear that the work is not finished. Aurora will keep training and practice up to date as staff change roles or join the trust, and keep checking that what the trust believes is happening in classrooms is what actually happens.

The trust thanks all the teachers, teaching assistants, reading coordinators and school leaders whose daily work has made these results possible.

Read the full article on the Tes website: How we narrowed the phonics gap for disadvantaged pupils. Tes offers five free articles a month to registered readers.