The programmes on the DfE list are validated for primary only and may be inappropriate for both the age and stage of students at secondary school. That Reading Thing meets the DfE's criteria for phonics interventions for older students as laid out in the 2021 Framework for Reading. Read more in this blog post.

We have been assured that Ofsted inspectors are very happy to see That Reading Thing in secondary schools, both mainstream and special settings. Read more about Ofsted's expectations for literacy interventions at secondary school on the official Ofsted blog. (Takes you to an external site.)

More information for schools from the Department for Education

• Text in italics is from the DfE webpage on validated phonics programmes

• Is there a statutory requirement for any school to choose from the validated programmes list?

• There is no statutory requirement for schools to choose one of the SSP programmes on the validated list. Ofsted does not have a preferred programme or approach.

• How does That Reading Thing fulfil all of the criteria laid out by the Department for Education?

• What’s important is that schools take an approach that is rigorous, systematic, used with fidelity (any resources used should exactly match the Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence (GPC) progression of their chosen SSP approach), and achieves strong results for all pupils, including the most disadvantaged.

• Do validated programmes meet the criteria which are entirely based on outcomes beyond key stage 1? No!

• A complete systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) programme is one that provides:

  • all that is essential to teach SSP to children in reception and key stage 1 years of mainstream primary schools

  • sufficient support for children in reception and key stage 1 to become fluent readers

  • a structured route for most children to meet or exceed the expected standard in the year one phonics screening check

  • all national curriculum expectations for word reading through decoding by the end of key stage 1.