Science: Led by Mrs Prinold

The Nature of Science

A high-quality science curriculum provides the foundations for understanding the world through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry, and physics. Science has changed our lives and is vital to the world’s future prosperity, and all children should be taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes, and uses of science.

Curriculum Intent

We aim to encourage a child’s natural sense of wonder about the world in which they live through first-hand practical experiences. Our science curriculum is designed to develop a sense of excitement and curiosity about natural phenomena.  We want our children to ask questions about what they see, hear, feel, and experience. We want them to develop their vocabulary and use simple scientific language to talk about what they have found out. We want them to understand how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave, and analyse causes. We want our children to build up a body of key knowledge and concepts. We want them to develop their understanding of scientific ideas and use different types of scientific enquiry to answer their own questions. This includes observing changes over a period, noticing patterns, grouping, and classifying things, carrying out simple comparative tests, and finding things out using secondary sources of information such as books, photographs, and videos.

Curriculum Implementation

• the curriculum is sequenced and well-structured with clear end points. knowledge is built on overtime and learning is broken down into component parts.
• regular professional development gives teachers’ the scientific subject knowledge they need to help children make connections between scientific concepts.
• teachers have access to medium-term plans to help them to deliver high-quality teaching and makes them aware of possible scientific misconceptions.
• pedagogical choices are designed to develop the substantive knowledge (established factual knowledge) and disciplinary knowledge (knowledge of how to work scientifically) intended in each lesson.
• teachers ensure children build their knowledge of key substantive concepts such as ‘plant,’ ‘force’, material’ and ‘habitat’.
• teachers use well-structured enquiry questions to focus a particular activity e.g., ‘How does the temperature of water affect the time taken for a substance to dissolve?
• children’s knowledge of how to work scientifically is built over time from Early Years to Year 2. 
• time is built into the curriculum for children to learn and remember key knowledge and how this connects with what they already know about science, so they build connected knowledge.
• children will be given sufficient opportunities to practise and consolidate what they have learned before moving on to new content.
• SEND children receive additional support before a lesson, for example through pre-teaching of specific vocabulary.
• children’s understanding of scientific vocabulary is developed, so children can talk about the phenomena they are learning about.
• teachers’ assessment checks knowledge that children have learned in previous years.

Please click the links below to access the following documents for Science:
Science Policy
Long Term Plan
Knowledge and Skills Progression