St John’s Angell Town C of E Primary School is a popular, single-form entry school located in the heart of Brixton, Lambeth. Almost half of its pupils are eligible for Pupil Premium funding. The headteacher, Mr. Patrick Williams, describes St John’s as having a ”family feel”, with an emphasis on pastoral care that puts children at the centre of provision. The staff are committed to “developing independent and resilient learners with a positive growth mindset”.

In November 2024, St John’s began using Chapter One’s programmes to provide additional one-to-one reading opportunities for pupils. First, they implemented Chapter One’s Online Reading Volunteers Programme, then, shortly afterwards, they supplemented this with the Early Literacy Intervention (ELI) Programme. The ELI programme provides an in-school specialist, Farida, who is employed by Chapter One, to work with selected children to consolidate their phonics knowledge.

Providing personalised support

As an ELI, Farida delivers daily ‘keep-up’ sessions for 10 pupils in Year One. The teachers at St John’s work alongside Farida to carefully select pupils and regularly review which children can benefit. This has resulted in consistently strong outcomes, both in terms of pupil attainment and also in children’s confidence and participation in their whole class phonics sessions.

Ensuring consistency

All ELI specialists, like Farida, are trained in teaching phonics, as well as strategies to help them identify and address gaps in learning. Each session features a range of accessible and fun activities designed to build confidence and reinforce the sounds children have already been taught.

Farida’s tailored sessions are underpinned by Chapter One’s bespoke platform, which provides activities matched to the target sounds and target progression, whilst allowing Farida to track learner progress.

St John’s uses Read Write Inc. as their SSP. The ELI programme follows its progression precisely to ensure fidelity and consistency for learners.

As Shanica Thomas, the KS1 Phase Leader, comments: “Farida uses the correct phrases and works in the systematic order of our SSP. It is such a consistent way for children to be supported.”

A nurturing environment

In addition to targeted support with their phonics, and in line with the evidence from the EEF toolkit on Teaching and Learning, each ELI session offers an opportunity for children to benefit from one-to-one coaching and encouragement.

Over the many months that Farida has worked with her group of year one pupils at St Johns, she has got to know them individually, including their likes and dislikes, what they find challenging and what they enjoy most. This has helped her to tailor her sessions to make them even more engaging and supportive.

Farida said: “When I first start working with a child, they're often very quiet, almost cautious. But then you see this wonderful transformation. Their confidence starts to grow, and before you know it, they're leading our conversations - excited to tell me what they've been practising, eager to show me what they can do.”

Promoting a love of reading

Farida typically allows time in her daily sessions to read a short text matched to the sounds that children have learned. This allows children to put what they know into practice.

It also offers an opportunity to talk about interesting words, helping to boost children’s vocabulary and comprehension skills at the same time.

Chapter One provides a selection of engaging stories, all of which have been designed to be age-appropriate and relatable for young children, helping to build enjoyment.

St John’s also uses Chapter One’s Online Reading Volunteers Programme to further promote a love of reading. This programme pairs children with a corporate volunteer for 30 minutes of one-to-one reading every week and is a perfect complement to ELI.

An ongoing partnership

The ELI programme has had a significant impact on the pupils that participated: in 2025, 86% of all pupils that took part in the programme passed their Phonics Screening Check compared to 82% of the overall cohort.

Going forwards, St John’s has opted to fully fund the ELI programme to ensure ongoing support for their pupils.

In their latest evaluation, the senior leadership team highlighted the benefit to pupil’s personal development and self-belief, which has, in turn, enhanced their relationship with learning, right across the curriculum.

Find out more

To learn more about how your pupils could benefit from Chapter One’s Early Literacy Interventionists, contact Kathryn Taylor at kathryn.taylor@chapterone.org