You may have seen in the media in recent weeks, news of the mandating of the daily teaching of phonics from Prep to grade 2, across all Victorian government schools. This mandate comes into effect next year. We think this is great news and will not need to adjust our literacy program, as here at Carlton PS, we have been using this method since 2020.

Over this time, under the guidance of our speech pathologist, Vanessa, staff have built their understanding of an evidence-based, systematic phonics program, and this is in place across all of our early years classrooms. Our improving school-wide literacy data supports our early uptake of this method.

In many ways we have been “ahead of the game” in acknowledging that this approach in the early years will give children the best foundation for future literacy competence and set them up well to become confident learners.