Guidance: Phonics screening check: 2026 materials

Scoring guidance, pupils' materials and answer sheet for the 2026 phonics screening check.

Ref: ISBN 978-1-83507-561-6, STA/26/9076/e

Ref: ISBN 978-1-83507-558-6, STA/26/9073/e

Ref: ISBN 978-1-83507-559-3, STA/26/9074/e

Ref: ISBN 978-1-83507-560-9, STA/26/9075/e

These materials are published to help teachers and pupils become familiar with the phonics screening check, and to enable teachers to score their pupils’ performance once the check has been administered.

The 2026 phonics screening check threshold mark is 31. Teachers should check each pupil’s mark against the threshold to establish whether they have achieved the expected standard.

The phonics screening checks are developed to the same specification each year. However, because the words must be different, the difficulty of the checks may vary slightly each year, and therefore the mark required to meet the expected standard may also vary slightly each year.

For example, if the overall difficulty decreases compared with previous years, the mark required to meet the expected standard will increase. Similarly, if the check is more difficult, the mark required to meet the expected standard will decrease.