Intent

Our aim for Science at Eythorne Elvington Community Primary School is to create opportunities for pupils to explore the world around us and discover how things work. 

We ensure there is a broad and balanced Science curriculum in place ensuring progressive development of knowledge and skills for all children. Children are encouraged to have a natural curiosity of the world; encourage respect for living organisms and the physical environment as well providing opportunities for critical evaluation of evidence.

In line with our whole-school Curriculum Intent, teachers will enthuse and inspire pupils in Science by bringing the learning alive through practical, hands-on experiences that encourage curiosity and questioning.  Our aim is that these stimulating and challenging experiences help every child secure and extend their scientific knowledge and vocabulary.

As always, our core school values will be seen through the subject. Pupils will be encouraged to have the confidence to be able to ask questions to further cement their scientific understanding of knowledge and skills. We want there to be no limits to what their ambitions are, and grow up wanting to potentially forge careers as scientists.  During lessons they will be shown how perseverance is integral in science when using regular trial and error methods to overcome a challenge.  Taking their learning of the natural world, they will develop a sense of empathy for all within science lessons and learning.  Pupils will learn to celebrate the success of scientific individuals from the past and present as well as their own success in their learning.

Implementation

Our Science curriculum has been designed to cover all of the skills, knowledge and understanding as set out in the National Curriculum as a minimum. The National Curriculum states that science should ‘provide the foundations for understanding the world through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics’.  To ensure that pupils develop a secure knowledge that they can build on, we have a coherently planned and sequenced curriculum which has been carefully designed and developed with the need of every child at the centre of what we do.  We follow the National Curriculum elements of:

Biology | Chemistry | Physics | Working Scientifically

The above are all mapped out to ensure that pupils build on secure prior knowledge. When covering each of these strands, the content will be carefully organised for each cohort through a long term plan which is closely monitored by the subject leader. Content knowledge, substantive concepts, key questions, possible misconceptions and progressive vocabulary will then be planned for at a greater level of detail in medium term plans.

Science is delivered through subject specific teaching with, at times, whole school themes running across the subject in a given term.  The aim of this is to allow for clear progression from EYFS through to Year Six, however, due to the differing natures of coverage this is not always possible.  Links with other subjects are clearly made where possible eg Mountains and Volcanoes in Geography is then linked with Rocks in Science for example.

Review | Teach | Practice | Apply

All learning will start by reviewing previous knowledge and other cross curricular links that will help them within a given lesson or area of Science. Pupils are taught the specific scientific vocabulary and these ideas, words and concepts are defined so as to allow them to fully access the learning within the teach element of each science session. Children explore, question, predict, plan and carry out investigations and observations as part of their scientific practice.  Pupils application is then demonstrated through presenting of findings; use of scientific language themselves; observations and diagrams to support scientific reasoning and explanation points.

Learning will be supported through the use of knowledge organisers that provide children with scaffolding that supports them to retain new facts and vocabulary in their long term memory. Knowledge organisers are used for pre-teaching, to support home learning and also as a part of daily review. Learning walls in every classroom provide constant scientific key vocabulary for children to refer to as well as prior learning reminders.  Continuous provision areas in every classroom allow opportunities for pupils to practice and apply their scientific understanding and skills.  Whole school, fortnightly quizzes will be used to assess understanding and highlight any gaps to be addressed.  Learning is reviewed also on a termly basis, after a period of forgetting, so that teachers can check whether information has been retained. Science assessment is ongoing throughout the relevant cross-curricular themes to inform teachers with their planning lesson activities and differentiation.

Impact

The impact of this curriculum design is to ensure that all pupils will be able to acquire the appropriate age related knowledge linked to the science curriculum and real life.  As they progress through the school years, the Science lessons will equip the children to progress from their starting points and within their everyday lives.

Through various workshops, trips, science week initiatives as well as interactions with Science experts, our curriculum will lead pupils to be enthusiastic science learners.