Science

'The important thing is to never stop questioning.' Albert Einstein

As with all subjects areas, our science curriculum has been designed to ensure each and every child can ‘be the best person they can be’  by offering  stimulating and awe-inspiring learning experiences with  our Catholic values at its heart.

The intent of our science curriculum

At St Mary and St Andrew's it is our endeavour to provide a high quality science education that provides children with the foundations they need to recognise the importance of science in every aspect of daily life. We want our children to appreciate how science has changed the lives of human beings and know that it is vital to the world’s future prosperity. Therefore, all pupils will be taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science.

Through building up a body of key foundational substantive knowledge and disciplinary concepts, pupils are encouraged to recognise the power of rational explanation and develop a sense of excitement and curiosity about natural phenomena.

Children will be taught to understand how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave, and analyse causes. Our curriculum also encourages children to become enquiry based learners, collaborating through researching, investigating and evaluating experiences.

It will provide opportunities for the critical evaluation of evidence and rational explanation of scientific phenomena as well as the opportunity to apply their mathematical knowledge to their understanding of science, including collecting, presenting and analysing data. Children will be immersed in key scientific vocabulary, which supports the acquisition of scientific knowledge and understanding. The following types of scientific enquiries are woven throughout our curriculum: Problem Solving, Pattern Seeking, Comparative/Fair Testing, Research, Observation Over Time and Identifying, Grouping and Classifying to ensure that children are gaining a full breadth of opportunities to engage in learning as scientists. All aspects of ‘Working Scientifically’ from the National Curriculum are interwoven throughout our curriculum, again, to ensure that children understand what it means to be a successful scientist.

Implementation

At our school, science is taught weekly. Teachers check on what children already know and help them to make links to prior learning. Children will be able to build on prior knowledge and link ideas together. This year, we are adapting the whiterose scheme of learning in our school. This is the first time we have used a published scheme of work in this subject area and are excited about the possibilities it offers our children along with continuing professional development for teachers.

Each year, we determine the organisation of our five classes; sometimes the classes are mixed age and other times they are straight year groups. To support the careful achievement of all pupils within their chronological year group, we plan for progression in single year groups. We commit to ensuring that all children receive their full educational entitlement, as a minimum, at the end of each keystage milestone: EYFS, KS1, LKS2 and UKS2.

Impact

Teachers create a positive attitude to science learning within their classrooms and reinforce an expectation that all children are capable of achieving high standards in science. We provide a fun, engaging, high-quality science education that provides children with the foundations for understanding the world. Formative assessment is used throughout each topic as it allows for misconceptions and gaps to be addressed more immediately rather than building on insecure scientific foundations. We summatively assess each child's knowedge at the end of each unit of work and use this informatin to buildon next steps for each child.

Our engagement with the local environment ensures that children learn through varied and first-hand experiences of the world around them. So much of science lends itself to outdoor learning and so we provide children with opportunities to experience this. Through various workshops, trips and interactions with experts, children have the understanding that science has changed our lives and that it is vital to the world’s future prosperity. Our children know what it means to be a scientist and develop their knowledge to support them in their transition to high school and beyond.

The successful approach to the teaching of science at our school results in engaging, high-quality science education, that provides children with the foundations for understanding the world that they can take with them once they complete their primary education.

Children at our school will:

Demonstrate a love of science work and an interest in further study and work in this field
Retain knowledge that is pertinent to science with a real life context.
Be able to question ideas and reflect on knowledge.
Be able to articulate their understanding of scientific concepts and be able to reason scientifically using rich language linked to science.
Demonstrate a high love of mathematical skills through their work, organising, recording and interpreting results.
Work collaboratively and practically to investigate and experiment.