The recommendations from the Rose Review have been further clarified as core criteria so that there is complete clarity about the key features of a high quality phonics programme. The core criteria are accompanied by explanatory notes which are designed to help schools and early years settings in understanding and applying the criteria.

Information for schools and early years settings

Schools and early years settings can also seek advice from the Early Years Regional Adviser or Primary Strategy Manager in their local authority in choosing an effective phonics programme which they should have in place to support their teaching of early reading.

To help schools and early years settings select a high quality phonics programme or resource from the many commercial products that are available, we have invited publishers to complete a self assessment of their materials against the core criteria. We hope that these completed self assessments will help schools and settings make informed decisions about whether commercial products meet the core criteria and enable them to find out a little bit more about what they offer. Completed self assessment forms can be accessed here.

To ensure that this process is as easy and useful as possible for schools and settings we have designed the self assessments in two parts:

• Part 1 - a 'snapshot' assessment which provides information about what the products offers and demonstrates how it fares overall against the criteria.
• Part 2 - this offers further detailed information about how the product meets each of the criteria.

Please note that the Department does not endorse, rank or otherwise prioritise the publishers, materials whose completed self assessments appear on this site. Neither should the completed self assessments be regarded as a list of 'approved' providers. However, publishers are expected to provide an honest and objective view of how their product meets the core criteria. The vast majority of entries on this website have now been independently scrutinised. Where this is not the case, this is indicated.