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Science
Purpose of study
A high-quality science education 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 pupils should be taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science. Through building up a body of key foundational knowledge and concepts, pupils should be encouraged to recognise the power of rational explanation and develop a sense of excitement and curiosity about natural phenomena. They should be encouraged to understand how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave, and analyse causes.
Source: National Curriculum, 2014
Intent
Science at Kingfisher Primary School aims to give all children a strong understanding of the world around them whilst acquiring skills and knowledge to help them to think scientifically, gain an understanding of scientific processes and also an understanding of the uses and implications of Science, today and for the future. Our aims are to fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum for science; providing a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum; ensuring the progressive development of knowledge, skills and vocabulary and for the children to develop a love of science.
Over-arching themes of learning in Science
Within science, the children focus on key themes of learning to develop and deepen a coherent understanding of key concepts, and their relevance to scientific concepts.
From EYFS, children develop their science knowledge through simple enquiry based questions that allow them to make links to previous learning; enquiry based questions ensure that children of all abilities are sufficiently challenged through high expectations. Our main themes focus on:
- Animals, including humans
- Plants
- Materials
- Living things and their habitats
In addition, further threads run through multiple year groups relating to:
- States of matter
- Forces
- Electricity
- Rocks and soil
- Light
- Seasonal changes
Science Progression
Science Overview
Progression and Delivery
In Foundation stage classes, children work towards the Early Learning Goals. In this year, science is linked through understanding the world, people and communities and physical development. Children make observations of animals and plants and notice any changes. They look at similarities and differences in relation to materials and living things. There are opportunities for outside learning and children take part in regular experiments whilst engaging with predicting what could happen.
There is a strong focus on the Characteristics of effective Learning which allows children to develop the critical thinking skills that will support their science throughout their school life, this enables the children to have these core science skills from the very start.
The science curriculum is taught on a weekly basis across all year groups from Year 1 to Year 6. The learning objective for each lesson is taken from the National Curriculum relevant to that year group to ensure there is clear progression of Science content. When planning for Science, we ensure there are cross curriculum links with English and maths.
The educational framework is structured to meticulously plan each unit, ensuring the thorough acquisition of essential knowledge pertinent to the topic at hand. A paramount objective is to establish connections with prior learning, thus fostering a continuum of knowledge acquisition. Moreover, deliberate efforts are made to integrate students' extracurricular interests and prior learning experiences, thereby enhancing relevance and engagement.
Within instructional sessions, a strategic use of questioning techniques is employed to promote critical thinking and facilitate the identification of patterns and connections within the subject matter. This method serves to actively engage students, guiding them towards deeper comprehension and fostering independent inquiry.
Following the consolidation of foundational knowledge through questioning, students are encouraged to apply acquired knowledge to practical experimentation. This experiential learning approach allows students to recognize the practical implications of their studies while refining their ability to apply theoretical concepts in real-world scenarios. Engaging students in formulating predictions based on their understanding not only reinforces critical thinking skills but also nurtures scientific inquiry and hypothesis testing.
The focus for Science in Key Stage 1 is to enable pupils to experience and observe phenomena, looking more closely at the natural and humanly-constructed world around them. To ensure pupils are working scientifically pupils will be encouraged to be curious and ask questions about what they notice. Pupils will perform simple tests and record their findings in order to help them answer a question.
For Key Stage 2 the focus is to enable pupils to broaden their scientific view of the world around them. To ensure pupils are working scientifically, pupils will use scientific language, ask relevant questions, set up simple practical enquiries/investigations and use fair tests. When conducting an enquiry, pupils will gather, record, classify and present data in a variety of ways. This recording of findings will be presented through drawings, labelled diagrams, bar charts and tables. From these findings pupils will draw simple conclusions, make predictions and suggest further improvements.
When planning and teaching a unit of science, the relevant vocabulary is taken from the progression of vocabulary document to ensure there is clear progression in the same unit of science across the year groups. This ensures that vocabulary is progressive and builds on previous learning.
Tracking and Assessment
Science is monitored by identifying whether pupils have met the expectations from the national curriculum. These are recorded on a document for each year group that can be reviewed by the class teacher, subject lead and senior staff. They assess the pupil’s understanding of the science content and their ability to work scientifically. Gaps in knowledge are noted and addressed during the start of sessions with key class targeted questions and through the Topic Questions as part of Early Bird sessions at the start of each day. This has also proved to be a good opportunity to consolidate the learning of all learners and keep information at the front of their minds. At the end of Year 2 and Year 6 Science is reported to county whether pupils achieved or did not achieve the expected standard.
Inclusion
Through careful monitoring of progress made throughout lessons and the outcome of work produced, additional support is offered to those who are finding a particular concept or skill difficult. These can take place when appropriate, whether that is within the lesson or separately. Those who have understood concepts more easily will be given additional challenges to progress to, applying their skills in a variety of contexts and developing their creativity and independence further.
Student voice
Listening to our students is a key part in helping us shape our curriculum and our learning. It helps us assess what they know, what they are learning and their interests.
Luke - Year 6 - 'I love the experiments. I remember this one experiment in Year 5 where we had to see if different ingredients fizzed or not.'
Isla - Year 3 - 'I like doing experiments and drawing diagrams to tell me what has happened.' –
Elena - Year 3 - 'I like science because we get to investigate different things which we have never done before and try new things.'
Saint - Reception - 'I liked growing the plants and watering them. I liked seeing them change.'
Freddie - Year 3 - 'I love the experiments and learning about the different topics. I love the writing too.'
Thea - LKFN - 'I liked planting the potatoes. You put one in the ground and then more grow.'
Finley - LKFN - 'I liked learning about wiggly worms and how they help.'
Caleb - Year 2 - 'I liked learning about the animals. My favourite is the shark. I also like cheetahs and tigers.
Lincoln - Year 1 - 'I really liked making the different potions in our experiment.'
Samples of work
Working Scientifically
