The Education (National Curriculum) (Specified Purpose) (England) Order 2011
Part 6 of the Education Act 2002 (“the 2002 Act”) is concerned with the curriculum for maintained schools in England. One aspect of the National Curriculum for England (as to which, see section 80(1)(b) of the 2002 Act) is the arrangements for assessing pupils for certain purposes (assessment arrangements). Assessment arrangements are specified by the Secretary of State by order under section 87(3)(c) of the 2002 Act. This Order, made under section 76(2)(b) of the 2002 Act, specifies an additional purpose for which such arrangements may be made. The purpose specified is the purpose of ascertaining the extent to which pupils in the first key stage understand the correspondence between graphemes and phonemes in English. Phonemes are the smallest units of sound in a language, and graphemes are the letter or letters that represent phonemes. “Phonics” is a method of teaching children to read and write by teaching them to associate letters (or a combination of letters) with sounds.