“Science is fun. Science is curiosity. We all have natural curiosity. Science is a process of investigating. It’s posing questions and coming up with a method. It’s delving in.”
Sally Ride
INTENT
As scientists we are curious about the world around us: we investigate, enquire and question!
How our curriculum is connected through our values:
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As scientists we will explore the community of Huntington, our city and the World in which we belong. |
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As scientists we will embrace questions and the opportunity to investigate for ourselves. |
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As scientists we encourage curiosity about the world around us. |
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As scientists we will succeed in developing an enquiring mind and knowledge about the world around us. |
IMPLEMENTATION
- Our science curriculum is taught in discrete sessions being no less than an hour a week and also through cross-curricular sessions to allow children an opportunity to make links in their learning.
- We follow the National Curriculum, covering all three scientific disciplines: Biology, Chemistry and Physics.
- Each class builds upon the learning from prior year groups enabling children to consolidate and deepen their knowledge; practise and enhance enquiry skills and develop a lifelong interest in STEM.
- Children explore, question, predict, plan, and carry out enquiries of all types (Comparative and Fair Testing, Pattern Seeking, Observing Over Time, Identifying Classifying and Grouping, Research Using Secondary Sources). Children analyse, present and evaluate their findings using subject specific language, diagrams and charts. This allows for maths to be used in real-world settings.
- At the start of each unit of work the children will be given an opportunity to share what they already know about the topic so the teacher can therefore plan to extend the children’s knowledge and approach misconceptions appropriately.
- Cross-curricular links are made with other subjects to deepen the children’s understanding of their world and to give real-world situations for children to practise their key skills of English, maths and computing within a scientific context.
- In each session subject specific vocabulary will be shared with the children and they are given extensive opportunities to use this vocabulary in context.
- At the end of the unit, teachers assess the children’s learning and progress by referring to their pre-assessment and through a variety of post-learning tools. Termly assessments are made using teacher assessment.
- The Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum begins the children’s educational journey into science through the planning and teaching of ‘Understanding the World’. Children are encouraged to use and explore their environment, asking questions and following their own lines of enquiry. Children find out about objects, materials and living things using all of their senses to look at similarities, differences, patterns and change.
IMPACT
The impact of our curriculum design means children make expected to greater depth progress over the key stages relative to their individual starting point and their progression of skills. Therefore most children leave Huntington Primary Academy with at least age-related expectations. Children grow in confidence and gain a range of scientific enquiry skills and a deep knowledge of science topics, which they will be able to build upon in KS3. This confidence also encourages them to embrace opportunities in the STEM community and encourages many of them to seek further information about STEM careers. However, those children choosing other career paths will have also developed curiosity, resilience, flexibility of thinking and questioning skills that will allow them to succeed in their chosen path.