Iver Heath

Nurturing happy, healthy, confident learners in a safe, rich learning environment

  • 'Thank you for all the guidance and support you have given our daughter. You have really instilled a lot of confidence in her!'
  • 'Words cannot express how grateful my husband and I are to all the staff for the hours of dedication and support that you have given our son throughout his time at the school!' (Parent)
  • 'Our daughter thoroughly enjoyed her experiences during her Forest School sessions and we enjoyed listening to her excited stories afterwards!'
  • 'Thank you for all your hard work, care and never ending support'.
  • 'Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all' Aristotle
  • 'It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression' Albert Einstein
  • 'Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire' WB Yeats
  • 'Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world' Nelson Mandela

Phonics and reading workshop

On Thursday 23rd January 2020 a Parents’ Workshop was held to explain the school’s methods of teaching Phonics and its links to Reading and Writing

The presentation given is available here and the main points covered are listed below:

    • Why phonics is important in breaking words into sounds as a foundation for reading and writing.
    • A short video was shown giving the correct phonic sounds.
    • Attendees participated in the “phonics frieze” game used to teach pupils
    • Phonics terminology was explained: Phoneme, Grapheme, Digraph, Trigraph, and Split Digraph.
  • Segmenting and Blending were demonstrated
  • The use of alien words was explained and attendees participated in the “Buried Treasure” game, which is also available on the internet.
  • Phonics is taught for about 20 minutes every day. Each lesson is made up of Review, Teach, Practice and Apply.
  • A list of common exception words is taught in each year at an increasing level of difficulty.
  • There are 5 phases of learning at increasing levels of skill from nursery to Year 1
  • At the end of Year 1 a DFE phonics assessment is carried out.
  • In Year 2 the phonics is mainly focussed on grammar.
  • Spelling tests are carried out in Years 1 and 2.