Why is my child's class time wasted by preparing for a phonics check? Why is time being wasted teaching him about pseudo words purely for a screening check?
Well, as I said above, it's a good idea for children to understand that they will encounter many words in their future reading that are unfamiliar to them. However, beyond that, if time is being wasted teaching pseudo-words, then that is down to a mistaken approach on the part of your school's teachers and head-teachers. Schools that use a good phonics programme and ensure their teachers can teach phonics well, with appropriate resources, do not resort to such time-wasting nonsense.
Phonics was only introduced to our schools about 10 years ago, and there was initially a great deal of resistance to it from many teachers and headteachers. The government had to force the university departments who train our teachers to add it to their curriculum, and some of them continue to disparage it and to teach outdated methods. So it's not that surprising that some schools still don't teach it well, and are susceptible to trying to fill in the gaps by silly policies like teaching pseudowords.
When the phonics check first was introduced, many literacy coordinators and teachers were surprised by how badly their children did, and re-thought their approach. Hopefully, at some point in the future, all schools will be teaching phonics well, and the phonics check will be discontinued.