Foundational knowledge approach at St Andrew’s
At St Andrew’s Primary School, our aim is to create strong foundations for every child, enabling them to grow in confidence and build upon these foundations as they continue their educational journey.
Strong Foundations refers to guidance published by the Department for Education and Ofsted that highlights the importance of making sure every child in the early years and early primary stages (Reception and Key Stage 1) builds the essential knowledge and skills they need to thrive throughout their whole school life.
At its heart, this means:
Securing the Basics Early
It’s about ensuring that children have a really strong grounding in the fundamentals — such as communication, early reading and phonics, writing, maths, and social and physical development — before they are asked to do more complex tasks. Children need repeated practice and teaching of core skills so that they remember and can confidently use them later on.
A Clear and Coherent Curriculum
Schools should be clear about what children need to learn and when, and make sure learning is sequenced properly so that each new step builds carefully on what came before. Children benefit most when learning is structured, well-planned, and matched to their developmental stage.
Focus on Fluency and Mastery
Rather than rushing into more challenging work, children are supported to become fluent — that is, comfortable and confident — in key skills like reading, writing and number work before they move on. This supports confidence, later learning and enjoyment of school.
Helping All Children Succeed
The guidance highlights that strong foundations are especially important for children who start school with lower levels of knowledge or confidence, or who have had limited early learning opportunities. The aim is for every child to have the solid building blocks they need so they’re ready for the rest of their education.
So, when we talk about Strong Foundations at school, we mean:
✅ Teaching and reinforcing the basics in a way that makes sense to young learners
✅ Making sure children have lots of opportunities to practice and become confident
✅ Helping children feel successful and ready for future learning
✅ Planning learning carefully so each step fits with what children already know
This is not about “teaching to a test” — it’s about giving children a really solid start that helps them feel confident, curious and capable as they continue through school.
Please see below for further information on how we aim to embed foundational knowledge and skills here at St Andrew’s (Yetminster).
Oracy
Handwriting
At St Andrew’s, we follow Unlocking Letters and Sounds for handwriting. Good handwriting is critical to children’s writing progress. It is essential that handwriting is practised until it is fluent and effortless so that the children can put all their effort into thinking about what they are writing.
Unlocking Handwriting Progression Unlocking Handwriting is a whole school handwriting programme. The progression used in Unlocking Handwriting follows the National Curriculum progression, with some additional content included based upon a wealth of experience of teaching handwriting in schools, feedback from schools seeking a comprehensive, progressive handwriting programme and updated guidance(including requirements from the National Curriculum).The progression Is structured broadly in units which are broken down into multiple sessions, offering a clear focus for each discrete handwriting lesson. Similar to the structure of Unlocking Letters and Sounds, Unlocking Handwriting provides ‘Mastery’ units for children to embed and secure the knowledge they have previously learnt. The programme also provides frequent opportunities for children to revisit previous learning and embed this before further refining their handwriting skills. Please find the skills progression linked here -> Unlocking Handwriting
Pupil guide to handwriting: Handwriting pupil guide
Spelling
We use the ‘Unlocking Spelling’ scheme for Years 2-6 in conjunction with the phonics and handwriting scheme from Unlocking Letters and Sounds. The scheme provides a systematic approach to teach spelling that ensures the children learn the spelling rules they need to secure strong foundations throughout their learning journey.