Intent
In science, we aim to give the children as much experience as possible to explore the world around them. We encourage them to ask questions, give their own ideas and make predictions about what they think will happen. From this they have opportunities to test out their own ideas, thinking carefully about what they have found out and what new knowledge they have as a result. This helps them to make sense of the world and equips them for the next stage of their education. This links closely with our values.
The breadth of our science curriculum is designed with three goals in mind:
- To provide appropriate experiences to develop as confident, responsible citizens;
- To provide a rich ‘cultural capital’;
- To provide a coherent, structured, science curriculum that leads to sustained mastery for all and a greater depth of understanding for those who are capable.
Implementation
Our Science Curriculum design is based on Chris Quigley Essentials Curriculum. Our curriculum design is based on evidence from cognitive science; three main principles underpin it:
- Learning is most effective with spaced repetition.
- Interleaving helps pupils to discriminate between topics and aids long-term retention.
- Retrieval of previously learned content is frequent and regular, which increases both storage and retrieval strength.
In addition to the three principles we also understand that learning is invisible in the short term and that sustained mastery takes time.
Early Year Foundation stage
We teach science in the Foundation Stage (Nursery to Reception) as an integral part of the topic work covered in the year. We relate the scientific aspects of the children’s work to the objectives set out in the Early Learning Goals (ELGs) which underpin the curriculum planning for children aged nought to five. Science makes a significant contribution to the objective in the ELGs of developing a child’s understanding of the world, e.g. through investigating what floats and what sinks when placed in water.
Key Stage 1: Years 1 and 2
The breadth of the curriculum links in with the programmes of study from the national curriculum. In Key Stage 1, there is a separate programme of study for Year 1 and 2. As part of the local curriculum and to keep with the idea of ‘possibilities,’ the school offers a broader science curriculum than the national curriculum. We have carefully planned the ‘topics’ we teach, so that the teacher has clarity about what to cover. Breadth helps to give the key background knowledge that students need for inference and understanding and the knowledge they need to do well, this is ‘cultural capital’.
| Year | Science ‘Big Ideas’ | |||||
| Year 1 | Sound
|
Hard Materials | Soft Materials | Plants | Ourselves | Earth and Space |
| Year 2
|
Forces | Changing Materials | Habitats | Electricity | Ourselves Compared to Other Animals | Light |
| Biology/Chemistry/Physics | ||||||
| Within each of the science ‘Big Ideas’ (topics) ‘Working Scientifically’ is built in to it in order to develop investigative skills AND the scientific concept being studied. | ||||||
The road map gives you a really good overview of our topics from nursery to Year 6.
Threshold concepts
The ‘threshold concepts’ are what pupils should understand. In science, these are returned to again and again across all year groups, they are what develops us as scientists. These include:
- Work scientifically
- Biology:
Understand plants
Understand animals and humans
Investigate living things
Understand evolution and inheritance
- Chemistry:
Investigate materials
- Physics:
Understand movement, forces and magnets
Understand the Earth’s movement in Space
Investigate light and seeing
Investigate sound and hearing
Understand electrical circuits
The returning to the same thing again and again is called interleaving. These diagrams explain how it works.
Special Educational Needs and Science
How do we ensure all children can access science lessons?
Pupils should have access to a broad and balanced curriculum. The National Curriculum Inclusion Statement states that teachers should set high expectations for every pupil, whatever their prior attainment. Effective quality first teaching is the key to enabling all children to participate and develop their scientific knowledge and skills. Differentiation within lessons is a vital component to ensure that a balance of support and challenge are achieved for all abilities. This is the same in every subject and differentiation is adjusted as expectations of individual pupils rise through progress. Challenge and support specific to science may include:
- varying the resources used
- varying the questions
- first hand experiences
- some pre-teaching
- modelling and supporting the use of new vocabulary
- varying how the learning is recorded
- accepting a verbal explanation when children explain their learning
- partner or group work – a collaborative approach to learning
- adult support
- adult scribing
- refer to learning journey to help them make links between learning experiences and knowledge and skills learnt and how their knowledge and skills will grow.
Impact
How Do We Help Children Get to a Deep Level of Understanding?
To help children get to a deep level of understanding we use quizzes and stimuli to encourage children to discuss and reason about a range of scientific concepts. Big Ideas form an overview for each scientific topic and children are encouraged to develop their understanding from a basic, through to an advanced and deep level of knowledge and apply this when working scientifically, enabling them to explain their thoughts using appropriate scientific vocabulary.
Children develop each concept over time and it takes up to a two-year period to get to a deeper level of understanding at the appropriate age. For example, in Year 1, children will have a basic understanding of hard materials at an age appropriate level, but by revisiting this they should have a deeper level of understanding by Year 2 of changing materials. Summative assessments are carried out towards the end of each year in the form of POP tasks.
Most of our science work is practical and hands on experiences. We use a ‘floor book’ in each class for science where we record the learning that the children have done in science. The children get the opportunity to record individually, particularly as they move in to Year 2.
