Students at Neville Bonner primary school participating in the Year 1 Phonics Check.
26 September 2025
In brief:
- All ACT public primary and early childhood schools have now participated in the Year 1 Phonics Check.
- The Phonics Check helps teachers see how well students understand sounds and letters.
- It forms part of the ACT system-wide literacy and numeracy program, Strong Foundations.
The Strong Foundations program has reached a major milestone, with all ACT public primary and early childhood schools participating in the Year 1 Phonics Check.
The Phonics Check helps teachers see how well students understand sounds and letters.
It shows where students are doing well and where they might need more help to decode words.
In 2024, 28 ACT schools helped trial the Phonics Check. Feedback from schools improved how the check was administered this year.
Schools use the data from the check to choose the right literacy and numeracy resources for teaching, like decodable readers.
The Year 1 Phonics Check is now a regular part of learning across the ACT public school system.
Creating Strong Foundations for ACT students
The Year 1 Phonics Check forms a key part of the ACT system-wide literacy and numeracy program called Strong Foundations.
The program aims to ensure all ACT public schools have access to consistent, high-quality literacy and numeracy education.
Under Strong Foundations, Canberra families can access:
- evidence-informed and consistent teaching practices in every classroom
- common assessments, including a year 1 phonics test
- advice and resources for parents, to support their children with literacy and numeracy
- multitiered systems of support for students in every public school.
Progressive Achievement Tests (PAT)
All kindergarten to year 10 schools have also been provided with the Progressive Achievement Tests (PAT) for Reading and Maths. These are created by the Australia Council for Educational Research (ACER).
PAT helps teachers understand how students are learning over time.
It shows their strengths and helps set learning goals.
It will also give each student a digital learning record across the ACT public school system.
Professional learning for teachers
This year, teachers have also been enhancing the way they teach phonics.
Teachers have taken part in training about phonemic awareness — understanding that words are made of sounds and how those sounds connect to letters.
More training sessions will happen in term 4.
Strong Foundations achievements in 2025
So far in 2025, the ACT government has:
- worked with schools and experts to agree on a shared way to teach and assess learning
- appointed Literacy and Numeracy leaders in every primary and early childhood school
- created a new Learning and Teaching Policy ready for 2026
- delivered 26 more training sessions for teachers with 9543 registered attendances across all sessions
- scheduled training for teachers on Explicit Teaching that will happen in Term 4 and Term 1 2026
- provided a $1.7 million package to support students in Years 3–6 with extra resources for literacy and numeracy.
Your school will share information with families about learning and teaching in 2026.
For more information, visit Education and training - ACT Government.
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