Science

Science Curriculum Intent

Vision

Our curriculum at Lockerley Primary School encompasses the following aims to meet the needs of our children and the Science curriculum is a vehicle to bring these aims to life:

ACTIVE - Use scientific enquiry to ask questions and carry out investigations, challenging and inspiring the children to find out more about the world.

EXPERIENCES - A wide range of experiments that engage awe and wonder, encouraging the children to look closely and develop their knowledge and understanding, making links to other concepts.

DIVERSITY - Ensuring children are exposed to a wider range of thinking and are able to use their own knowledge and understanding of the world to make their own reasoned explanations.

PURPOSE - Making meaningful learning is central to our teaching. Learning journeys are made clear to the children with an outcome we are working towards and the steps along the way. We have developed ‘real life’ opportunities for children to share their work and the children are encouraged to lead their own lines of scientific enquiry.

Science Curriculum Implementation

EYFS

EYFS planning is matched to age and stage appropriate curriculum. Scientific skills are adapted to match key areas of the curriculum, with children building on their knowledge of everyday concepts in their lives. The provision includes individual and small group work, and a balance between guided interaction with direct teaching and child-led activities. Objective led planning allows the teachers to tailor individual next steps, based on assessments, into the environment and play-based activities for the children. Small group work is used to target particular needs, and early intervention is also used 1:1 with a child if they have been identified as not keeping up.

Y1-6

Science is taught throughout the school year, and as the key foundation subject it is allocated one hour per week for in-depth study. Teachers plan from the National Curriculum objectives alongside the Progression of Investigation Skills. Each year group has a long term plan which outlines the learning journeys to be covered referring to the units in the National Curriculum. This is a progressive cyclical learning approach where learning is revisited over the course of each Key Stage, deepening their understanding each time.

The children use the Investigation Triangle to think carefully about how they conduct experiments in a scientific manner. By presenting their learning in this way, and allowing children the opportunity to deepen their understanding by focusing on Science for an entire term, children have opportunities to follow their own lines of enquiry to develop a better understanding of the world.

Planning is flexible to the learners needs and can run over a course of a few days. There will be a key task which has variations of this task to support and scaffold and to deepen learning. Children are encouraged to self-select the tasks depending on their confidence level.

Scientific language is scaffolded in each class with key vocabulary displayed on the working wall. Teachers model the use of this language in their teaching.

We also strongly believe that within our curriculum skills should be developed alongside knowledge. Therefore we have a set of core skills at the centre of our curriculum which underpin everything we do. These build progressively as the children move through the school.

To seek out and enjoy challenges
To ask questions to extend thinking
To collaborate with others
To overcome barriers by trying out alternative and adapting or developing ideas
To assess themselves and others
To show commitment and perseverance
To connect ideas and experiences in different ways
To generate ideas and explore possibilities.

Science Curriculum Impact

Assessments are made by the teachers continuously and used to plan subsequent lessons. Tapestry is used within EYFS to record observations and assessments. This shares learning with parents and we encourage parents to share learning from home through this platform. Live marking within lessons drives immediate feedback and adaptations to learning. If feedback is given after the lesson, children are expected to respond to the marking during the following session. Teachers track individual progress on assessment sheets which identify children not achieving Age Related Expectations and those exceeding them. This provides information for the pitch of teaching in the next Science unit, and highlights areas that could be covered during the other terms where appropriate.