Our Approach
Our philosophy is borne out of hands-on, recent classroom experience combined with expert phonics knowledge and is based around the principle that children learn best when they are engaged, involved, and are taught in ‘short bursts’, avoiding asking young children to sit and listen for long periods. We have tried to devise our lessons with all of this in mind, using bright, engaging games and activities that bring joy to phonics learning.
Our programme is designed to be used by those completely new to phonics, as well as those who are more experienced in delivering phonics who are looking for fresh, yet structured, ideas.
Meet the team
Heather McAvan is our founder and is an experienced primary teacher, with a breadth of experience teaching ages 5-11, and a stint teaching in Japan and Spain. She is passionate about introducing play and active learning to phonics lessons to ensure equity and engagement for all children. Heather has worked in educational publishing for over 10 years, and has worked for a range of edu companies in that time before setting up Mrs Mactivity, and Time for Phonics.
After many years as a year 5/6 teacher, Heather moved down to a year 1 class and really struggled to teach phonics having had no prior training. After learning the ropes, she decided she wanted to reach and help other teachers in a similar position - looking for easy to understand and deliver phonics lessons that help children make progress. So, Time for Phonics was born!
You can find out more about Heather on the Classroom Secrets Podcast and the Teachers of Tomorrow Podcast. You can also discover Heather's book - Learn to Read the Easy Way on Amazon.
Katie Whitehead is a specialist phonics teacher and influencer with 17 years teaching experience, having been Early Years Lead, Year 1 Team Leader and Phonics Whole School Lead. She currently splits her time between working part-time in school and looking after her two boys. Katie created a large number of the phonics lessons and wrote the majority of the decodable texts and lesson presentations. She has a huge passion for creating fun, hands-on Phonics activities, and has her own range – Phonics Family.
Hayley Price is our resource designer and illustrator and has spent many years passionately studying and working within children’s illustration and design in the UK and abroad. As well as creating the phonics resources that support our programme, Hayley is the creative genius behind our decodable texts, and hand drew and devised all of the characters and storylines. She also created the illustrations and design for the online phonics games. Hayley enjoys creating all manner of puzzles and characters and is always tinkering away in her sketchbook. In her spare time she loves rambling, eating cheese and sketching.
Sophie Pickles is an Early Years, phonics and parenting expert after spending several years as head of Early Years and a member of SLT at an outstanding-rated child-led setting. Sophie is passionate about a child-led play approach to learning and is an advocate of the Reggio Emilia approach. Sophie created the content for a large number of our lessons and is also the face behind our phonics courses and videos.
Anne Helsby has worked in primary schools in Lancashire for more than 15 years, teaching children from 4 to 11. Since leaving teaching, she has spent several years creating content and teaching resources for primary aged children. Anne created the phonics extension sheets and some of the phonics lesson presentations, as well as contributing to the decodable texts. She lives by the sea and is also mother to two teenage daughters.
Amy-Louise Peach is an education consultant and influencer, specialising in EYFS. She is a qualified primary teacher and phonics lover! Amy has a YouTube channel with over 200,000 subscribers, for which she creates videos for parents, carers and teachers, to help them support early learners. Amy helped to create our phase 5 phonics ebooks and is also a regular contributor to our phonics webinars.
Amy is a pro train-track builder, second only to her two-year-old, who takes toy trains very seriously.
How effective is Time for Phonics?
Since it is now around a year since our first schools started using Time for Phonics to help children read fluently, we now have some compelling data to support the efficacy of TFP.
Shelley Lee, phonics lead at St James' Catholic Primary School, Lancashire.
Only 70% of last year's cohort passed the phonics screening check. Those children are now in year 2 and since using Time for Phonics, all have passed the screening check.
In the year 1 cohort, 88% of children passed, with the children that didn't pass having significant additional needs or only recently having joined the school.
That is an 18% uplift in just one year of using Time for Phonics!
A child that joined my class in the spring term with little knowledge of phase 3 (in year 1), has been very engrossed in the multi-sensory approach to the scheme, and has passed the screening check with full marks!
Frequently asked questions
- Has Time for Phonics been validated? Yes, Time for Phonics is a fully DfE validated phonics programme.
- How does Time for Phonics align with decodable texts? You can read more about this here. Included in the programme are a series of decodable texts that can be used alongside or during daily lessons, these can be found at the bottom of the appropriate lesson page. We have prepared a decodable text alignment guide, showing which book corresponds with which phonics stage.
- Is this the same site as Mrs Mactivity? No, although we are part of the same business, this is a separate website so you’d need a different login for each site.
- Does Time for Phonics offer guided reading sessions? Yes, we have now added guided reading resources, read more about that here.
- Does Time for Phonics have assessment materials? Yes, we have comprehensive assessment materials including phonics screening check preparation materials.
- Does Time for Phonics have phonics intervention sessions? Yes, we have a complete phonics intervention programme, complete with guidance.
- Is there a structured intervention programme for KS2?
Yes we have a specific programme for KS2 working on a variety of phonics skills via the link above. - Do you have handwriting resources? Yes, you can find those here.
- Do you offer phonics training? Included with school memberships of Time for Phonics is one hour of live online training which will show schools how to implement the programme in their setting. Schools will also have instant access to our on-demand training offer to help get the most out of their membership. Find out more here.
- Can Time for Phonics be used alongside other schemes? The 2021 Reading framework recommended fidelity to one scheme to avoid confusion.
- Can Time for Phonics be used in international schools?
Yes and in fact lots of international schools love Time for Phonics due to our on-demand video training and downloadable resources. This means you don't need to ship over lots of expensive physical resources and books! - Can I sign up as an individual? Yes, you can sign up as an individual but you cannot claim to be a Time for Phonics school.
- Does Time for Phonics take into account guidance from the 2021 Reading Framework? Yes, we have amended our lessons to reflect the guidance.
- Can I speak to another school who are using Time for Phonics? Yes, please email us on [email protected] and we can let you have contact details.
What we believe
We believe that children learn best when they are given hands-on opportunities for learning that is both exciting and rigorous. Our multi-sensory phonics scheme and interactive phonics games are designed specifically to engage and teach children whilst they have fun!
What we provide
We provide everything you need to teach daily phonics sessions including: CPD videos, online phonics games, daily phonics lessons that can be downloaded or viewed online, phonics lesson presentations, phonics assessments, resources for parents and SEND children and all accompanying phonics resources.
Our school membership includes...
Phonics Lessons
Aligned with the Letters and Sounds framework
Fresh ideas for both new and experienced teachers.
Low prep! With mimimal additional resources needed.
Phonics assessments for each phonics phase.
Includes planning for phase 1 phonics.
Phonics Games
Phonics games from phase 2 to phase 5.
Can be played on interactive whiteboards, desktop, tablets and all mobile devices.
Can be used by children independently, or as a class on the whiteboard.
Ideal for preparing for the Phonics Screening Check
Decodable Texts
Unique decodable texts matched to our order of progression.
Contains a diverse range of characters and storylines.
Access as printable ebooks and mini-books, or as a flip book on screen.
Delightful stories that children really relate to and love. Includes joke books, non-fiction and more!
For full access to our unique games and resources
Who is it for? How does it help?
Our phonics scheme and online phonics games can be used by any school interested in a more hands-on, active approach to phonics. Suitable for both ECTs and experienced teachers looking for a simple, easy to follow scheme, with few resources to prepare. We believe that children learn best with short, sharp sessions that take into account their attention span at such a young age. We have designed our lessons to be fresh, interesting and engaging for all.
Here are some useful links to get you started
What our wonderful community says...
