There are four different elements to ULS – our DfE-validated SSP programme, which was created in partnership with the school-based ULS team in Portishead.
1) The Subscription
A subscription to Unlocking Letters and Sounds (£250-£300) grants you access to the heart of the programme – the user-friendly online platform. Here you can easily find all the resources you need to deliver powerful phonics teaching, such as:
A progression
ULS largely follows the progression contained in the 2007 Letters and Sounds framework. With a decade of experience using Letters and Sounds, we’ve simply:
• Clarified/refined learning elements omitted from the original
• Ensured that it’s in line with current guidance (including requirements from the National Curriculum)
• Added in structured opportunities for revision (‘Mastery’)
Phase 1 activities
For schools with a pre-school attached and/or schools that have students who arrive in Reception having not yet mastered Phase 1, we provide activities to develop Phase 1 skills – the crucial first step in every student’s phonics journey.
Ready-to-teach lessons for Phases 2 to 5
Our daily whole-class phonics lessons for Phases 2 to 5 consistently follow a ‘revise, teach, practise, apply, review’ structure. There are three components to them:
• Weekly overviews of the lessons and what they cover
• The slides for your digital whiteboards
• Walkthroughs to guide you through how to deliver a lesson at the given phase
Actions and images
ULS provides simple actions and a corresponding ‘action image’ for each Phase 2 and Phase 3 phoneme, to support children with a multi-sensory approach in these early stages of reading development.
Assessment tools
ULS uses daily formative assessment and regular diagnostic assessment to identify gaps in children’s learning. We supply various tools to help with this, such as a whole-class assessment tracker (alternatively, ULS assessment can be tracked via Insight) and an individual assessment record (for your lowest 20%).
Interventions
ULS then includes six targeted interventions, which will close any gaps in learning you’ve identified – and ensure the lowest 20% ‘keep up’. (These interventions are very ageless, so can be used with students who’re still securing their phonics skills into KS2 and above, too.)
Guidance around reading
Our guidance on books and reading ensures students are successfully practising/consolidating their growing phonics knowledge – and also developing broader literacy skills. Indeed, we cover both independent reading (at home, etc.) and guided reading (in small, teacher-led groups) – with pre-prepared lesson plans available for the latter.
‘Unlocking Handwriting’
As well as handwriting being built into the daily phonics lessons, our platform also contains a complete handwriting scheme for pre-school to Year 6 ‘on the house’. Fully resourced, Unlocking Handwriting covers your handwriting lessons, assessment and intervention.
And more!
On our platform you’ll find everything from pre-recorded videos (how-tos, model lessons, etc.) to a glossary to ensure consistency in language across your school – and so much more.
Free trial available
Get in touch to claim a school-wide login to our core online platform, so you can have a good explore/trial of everything. (Don’t worry – no need to remember to cancel anything! The login we provide will simply deactivate after 30 days.)
2) The Training
Next, the training is the one element of ULS that’s not supplied by Ransom – but by our partners, the school-based ULS team in Portishead.
We strongly recommend all schools purchase the one-off Whole School ULS Training (£750), to ensure you’re delivering the programme with expertise/fidelity.
Beyond that, there is:
• Free ongoing training in the form of Essential Termly Updates (in these online sessions a member of the training team will provide useful updates, present on a relevant topic e.g. ‘Preparing for the Phonics Screening Check’ – and there’s always a Q&A session at the end)
• A range of other courses available to purchase as needed, such as ‘Phonics Leader CPD,’ ‘Assessment to Intervention Training’, ‘Cracking Blending Twilight’
You can see the training team’s full offer for this academic year (with links to booking forms) here and you reach them on uls@sppschool.uk if you have any questions.
3) The Classroom Resources
To implement ULS, you will also need some classroom resources (e.g. flashcards, mats and wall friezes).
These are all on our online platform, so you can download and print them for free.
Alternatively, if you’re looking to save time, these classroom resources are also available to buy in professionally printed.
(If you’re not sure what you need, do get in touch. We’ll find out a bit about your school and talk you through it. Our top tip, if you’re balancing saving time and saving money, is to print the A4 resources yourselves and buy in just the A6/A1 resources – which are harder to print yourselves!)
4) The Fully Decodable Reading Books
Last but not least, you will need some fully decodable books for students to read to practise/consolidate their growing phonics knowledge – and also develop broader literacy skills.
ULS sees students using fully decodable books in guided reading sessions (so reading in small, teacher-led groups) and in independent reading sessions (at home, etc.).
If you already have some Letters and Sounds 2007 books, you can audit/match them up to the ULS teaching sequence and use them. (Just be aware this is quite hard to do at Phase 5!)
Alternatively, we have our own pool of really high-quality books that are already all pre-matched to the ULS teaching sequence on a week-by-week basis:
• The Reading Stars Phonics collection (248 books), for KS1
• The separate Reading Stars Achieve Phonics collection (96 books), for KS2/KS3 ‘catch up’. (We know it’s really nice to be able to ensure any struggling/EAL students who’re still securing phonics at this later stage aren’t going to be put off reading by seeing ‘little kid books’ they/their friends recognise from KS1. This age-appropriate collection is also designed for weaker readers, so will really propel them forwards.)
If you’re interested in getting some of these ‘official’ titles in, either to overhaul your current guided/independent reading collections or just to supplement them in places/fill in any gaps, get in touch.
We have ready-made packages of these books specifically for ULS users or we can build ‘bespoke packages’ tailored to your needs – all at a special 30% off RRP discount for being a ULS subscriber.
Free sample pack available
Get in touch to claim a sample pack of our fully decodable books. It’s entirely free – and they’re yours to keep! (Please just note this offer is only one pack per school, and only for schools who have not previously ordered any Reading Stars Phonics and/or Reading Stars Achieve Phonics books.) Alternatively, you can look inside some of our books digitally below:
Look inside some titles in our KS1 range (Reading Stars Phonics)
Look inside some titles in our KS2/KS3 ‘catch up’ range (Reading Stars Achieve Phonics)
Also looking for fully decodable chapter books for KS3/KS4? Check out the new editions of our bestselling Dark Man and Steve Sharp series – now 100% fully decodable at ULS Phase 5.