Emscote Infant School
and
All Saints' C of E Junior School
Science
Curriculum Statement - Science
Intent
‘Every child a Scientist’
At All Saints’ Junior School, our vision is to give children a Science curriculum which enables them to confidently explore and discover the world around them, so that they have a deeper understanding of the world we live in. To achieve this it involves exciting, practical hands-on experiences that encourage curiosity and questioning.
Our aim is that these stimulating and challenging experiences help children secure and extend their scientific knowledge, vocabulary and thinking. We believe that these opportunities will ensure that our children are confident, life-long learners who will explore and consider the world around them.
As a school, we want to ensure that all our children are equipped with the following from our progressive science curriculum:
- We endeavour to embrace a child’s natural curiosity about the universe around them, whilst simultaneously promoting a respect for all living organisms and the environment.
- Develop scientific knowledge and understanding within the three disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics.
- Develop a set of attitudes which will promote scientific ways of thinking, including perseverance, objectivity and a recognition of the importance of teamwork
- Create opportunities to understand the nature of “scientific method” involving: careful observation, the making and testing of predictions, the design of fair and controlled experiments, the drawing of meaningful conclusions through critical reasoning and the evaluation of evidence
- Become effective communicators of scientific ideas, facts and data
- To build up a body of scientific knowledge and understanding which will serve as a foundation for future enquiry.
- Develop an enthusiasm and enjoyment of scientific learning and discovery
- High expectations for every child
Implementation
The national curriculum is delivered through the use of ‘Engaging Science’ along with other resources. Unit plans for each Year Group clearly identify the objectives for each Science unit, which are derived directly from the National Curriculum. The objectives for each unit of work are broken down into a series of carefully planned small steps and lessons within a unit. The content should be taught in order (as on Termly Overviews) as it is designed to gradually develop children’s understanding and show progression across the Key Stage.
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Each Unit follows the same structure:
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Scientific Talk |
Vocabulary introduced and modelled. Questions and sentence stems (specific to the topic). These would run throughout the lessons and unit. |
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Explanation of the unit; including expectations for learning, Key Concepts, Developing Scientific Reasoning, Prior Learning in Science, Common Misconceptions and Enrichment Opportunities |
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Questions promoting scientific thinking and to assess current knowledge of the unit. |
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All lessons begin with Expectations for the next lesson, Resources and Preparation and Key Vocabulary |
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Each lesson begins with an introduction to the Unit/Lesson |
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Each lesson is split into timed, individual activities, Some of these activities are practical, hands-on investigations or observations, some of them are discussion based (whole-class, group or pair), some can require children to work individually and others in teams. Within each lesson, there is a variety of approaches to teaching and learning (visual, auditory and kinaesthetic). |
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Each lesson finishes with a plenary and gives a suggestion for homework to continue learning (some of these are suitable if they link with the Topic Homework grids sent out |
The ‘Engaging Science’ approach incorporates the use of visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learning and focuses on developing Scientific Thinking and Reasoning through investigations and observations. This helps children explore and demonstrate scientific ideas, enriching their learning experience and deepening their understanding.
Science is taught in explicit units, in line with the National Curriculum but is also taught discretely throughout other aspects of the curriculum allowing children to access a broader curriculum, with examples of this including biographies about famous scientists in English, as well as sketching and observing plants in Art.
Our science curriculum is designed to provide children with the opportunity to work scientifically and acquire the necessary skills to problem solve and work collaboratively to conduct a range of investigative activities. When conducting investigations, children are encouraged to think like scientists and make predictions using their previous knowledge and experiences to support their theologies. Teachers model the use of vocabulary, various scientific equipment and the scientific skills needed in order to embed scientific understanding.
Throughout the school year, regular events such as Science Week are implemented across the school in order to broaden the provision pupils receive, allowing them to apply scientific skills within a new context.
Each unit covered within science is summatively assessed to ascertain each individual child’s progress and formative assessment is used during and at the end of each individual lesson taught. The science co-ordinator is responsible for monitoring the subject, including the development of medium term and short-term planning, as well as the standards within the science books. Throughout the year, regular INSET training is provided in order to disseminate new information, ensuring all staff are updated with relevant changes within science, resulting in teachers delivering the best science provision for all pupils in their care.
Impact
Our science curriculum is carefully planned by our staff, in line with our skills progression and it is tailored to suit the individual needs of each year group. This allows us to ensure that all children are keeping up with the curriculum, therefore making good progress. We measure the impact of our science curriculum through rigorous assessment, keeping track of all children’s progress across each scientific unit as they move throughout the school. Our skills progression enables us to ensure that children’s scientific understanding is consistently being built upon, as it provides clear, differentiated structure for our science curriculum.
- Formative assessment is embedded in every lesson using a variety of strategies including observation, questioning, outcomes and challenge. This is used to inform future planning and identify gaps in learning.
- Summative assessment takes place at the end of each term to monitor and track progress of pupils alongside teacher assessment. Children are also assessed using the Headstart Unit Science Assessments (these asses children’s knowledge for each of the units taught).
Year 3 Rocks
In groups we explored lots of different rock samples. We started by looking at them and feeling them, then we worked together to group or classify them according to different characteristics. Some people sorted them by size or colour or shape. We realised there were lots of ways to classify them.
Year 3 Science
In Science, Year 3 learnt about the digestive system of an owl. We then dissected Owl pellets – this is what the bird regurgitates through it’s beak because it can’t digest – we found that the pellets were full of small mammal bones and hair. At first some of us thought it was disgusting but soon we got into it and loved micro-searching for tiny bones, then trying to identify them!
Science – Light topic
Year 6 had to establish the best arrangement of a light source and material when creating a shadow puppet. They also had to consider a variety of things such as:
- The best material to use for the theatre, the screen and the puppets. We discussed transparent, translucent and opaque materials.
- The ideal place to position the puppets as well as the light source (torch).
- The size and position of the puppets to create their desired impact.
The children really enjoyed making their puppet shows and experimenting with light, position and size to create the best silhouettes they could.
Each class then got to code their own robots! We had to consider direction (using degrees and turns), distance, rotation and other key information, in order to enable our robots to move. We had a lot of fun improving our coding skills!
Year 5 - London’s Big Stink of 1858.
In 1858, all of London was feeling the effects of an oppressive heat wave and as a result, all the sewage in the River Thames began to ferment in the scorching sun. Centuries of waste was literally cooking in the monstrous heat and the result was unimaginable.
We have been learning about mixtures and reactions and figuring out which are reversible and which aren’t. We created our own sewage (using safe food products of course) and then tried to see if we could purify the water. The children were given colanders, sieves, filter paper, spoons and tongs/tweezers to see which worked best to remove the different items from their ‘sewage’. They tried to purify the water as much as possible with these resources.
Year 6 – Road to RIAT STEM day
In Year 6, we had a whole day of STEM! We took part in the RAF Road to RIAT (Royal International Air Tattoo) event, where we became engineers and designers for the day. We carried out a Space Challenge where we had to design, build and test a rocket. We worked in teams to create our rockets and then, as a year group, we tested them on the playground.
We measured the distance our rockets travelled and the time it took, we then used this information to calculate the speed that they travelled. We also considered the effect of angles on the distance travelled and tested our rockets being launched from various degrees. The RIAT team taught us all about the effects of Space and the different parts of a rocket.
During our afternoon session, we learnt about sustainability and renewable energy. We used this information to then design our own sustainable aircraft. These designs are being created for a competition being run by RIAT. Prizes include: tickets to the RIAT, lego kits, money vouchers and lots more…wish us luck!
