Curriculum intent, implementation, and impact
Key Stage 1
At Allscott Primary School and Nursery, our intention for Key Stage 1 science is to inspire, excite, provoke and ignite our learners with a passion for, interest and understanding of the science phenomena in the world around them. With scientific enquiry at its heart, we develop our pupils’ knowledge, understanding and scientific skills to ensure that they recognise how scientific concepts are meaningful and relevant to them in their everyday lives, learning how scientific ideas have changed overtime and how in an ever-changing world, they continue to do so.
We want our pupils to see themselves as scientists, through their realisation that science is involved in many professions and being inspired by learning about the work of significant scientists. We believe that our budding scientists are entitled to a rich and broad science curriculum and that it is vital for them to have plentiful opportunities to investigate, discover and challenge ideas for themselves through hands on practical experiences, observations and problem solving. We enrich our curriculum by taking learning out of the classroom to investigate science in action in our school environment, taking advantage of our forest school area and locality, as well as extending our cultural capital through educational visits or by inviting visitors in where possible following lines of interest or enquiry raised by the pupils.
We recognise that science is a core subject and ensure that it receives discrete, weekly curriculum coverage as well as making links to other areas of the curriculum whenever possible. We want our pupils to recognise how their scientific skills are transferrable to many other areas. Our science lessons are packed with opportunities to draw together the key STEM areas of science, technology, English and maths.
The use of spoken language within this is also critical, to ensure that our pupils are able to understand and use scientific vocabulary accurately and to communicate and articulate scientific concepts clearly and precisely.
Key Stage 2
At Allscott Primary School and Nursery, we encourage children to be inquisitive throughout their time at the school and beyond. We recognise the importance of science in every aspect of daily life. As one of the core subjects taught in Primary Schools, we give the teaching and learning of science the prominence it requires. Throughout the programmes of study, pupils will acquire and develop the key knowledge that has been identified within each unit and across each year group, as well as the application of scientific skills. We ensure that the Working Scientifically skills are built-on and developed throughout children’s time at the school so that they can apply their knowledge of science when using equipment, conducting experiments, building arguments and explaining concepts confidently and continue to ask questions and be curious about their surroundings. We enrich our curriculum by taking learning out of the classroom to investigate science in action in our academy environment, taking advantage of our forest school area and locality, as well as extending our cultural capital using educational visits or by inviting visitors in and where possible following lines of interest or enquiry raised by the pupils.
We recognise that science is a core subject and ensure that it receives discrete, weekly curriculum coverage as well as making links to other areas of the curriculum whenever possible. We want our learners to recognise how their scientific skills are transferrable to many other areas.
The use of spoken language within this is also critical, to ensure that our pupils are able to understand and use scientific vocabulary accurately and to communicate and articulate scientific concepts clearly and precisely.
We aim to ensure that the science curriculum we provide will give all children the confidence and motivation to continue to further develop their skills into the next stage of their education and life experiences.
Key Stage 1
In line with the KS1 National Curriculum pupils learn about plants, animals including humans, living things and their habitats, everyday materials and seasonal changes, all of which involve phenomena that they encounter and can observe in the world around them. The science coverage is organised across both year groups over our two-year rolling programme, ensuring all pupils cover all these areas over the course of their KS1 offer.
Rolling programmes are linked with our themes across our creative curriculum as closely as possible to maximise the opportunities to make links across the curriculum and ensuring exciting and engaging opportunities such as visits can be planned for and enabled. The KS1 teacher completes termly creative curriculum plans to map out the knowledge and skills to be taught across the term in more detail and ensuring progression through opportunities to consolidate previously covered skills, introduce new skills and deepen understanding and approaches.
Scientific enquiry is at the heart of all of our science planning and teaching, and we plan carefully to ensure that pupils experience all of the different types of enquiry. These are packed with a wealth of specific skills to be developed and explored. The skills include:
These all need to be covered in order to carry out any quality scientific enquiry effectively and so are mapped out to be covered each term. In Key Stage 1, this has been done to ensure that the key skills involved within the strand are introduced in the autumn term. In the Spring term these skills are then consolidated and extended in different contexts with a wider breadth of examples introduced and used and then in the summer term learners use these competencies to apply these skills for themselves, making their own purposeful choices about which line of enquiry to follow, which skills to employ and justifying and reflecting on the success of these.
Key Stage 2
In line with the KS2 National Curriculum our pupils learning will focus on working scientifically across a range of units including plants, animals including humans, rocks, light, forces and magnets, living things and their habitats, sound, electricity and states of matter, living things in their habitat, animals including humans, properties and changes of materials, earth and space, forces, evolution and inheritance, light and electricity.
Working Scientifically, skills are embedded into lessons to ensure these skills are being developed throughout the children’s school career and new vocabulary and challenging concepts are introduced through direct teaching. The science coverage is organised across lower and upper key stage 2 over our two-year rolling programme, ensuring that all pupils cover all of these areas over the course of two years. They are matched to the themes of our creative curriculum as closely as possible to maximise the opportunities to make links across the curriculum and ensuring exciting and engaging opportunities such as visits can be planned for and enabled.
The KS2 teacher completes a termly creative curriculum plans to map out the knowledge and skills to be taught across the term in more detail and ensuring progression through opportunities to consolidate previously covered skills, introduce new skills and deepen understanding and approaches. Furthermore, this team approach continues into weekly planning meetings through reflecting on approaches, sharing ideas and resources and making adaptations where needed. This ensures consistency across the classes and year groups within the phase.
Scientific enquiry is at the heart of all of our science planning and teaching and we plan carefully to ensure that pupils experience all of the different types of enquiry. These are packed with a wealth of specific skills to be developed and explored. The skills covered include:
These all need to be covered to carry out any quality scientific enquiry effectively and so are mapped out to be covered each term.
In KS2 pupils should be given a range of scientific experiences to enable them to raise their own questions about the world around them. They should start to make their own decisions about the most appropriate type of scientific enquiry they might use to answer questions; recognise when a simple fair test is necessary and help to decide how to set it up; talk about criteria for grouping, sorting and classifying; and use simple keys. They should begin to look for naturally occurring patterns and relationships and decide what data to collect to identify them. They should help to make decisions about what observations to make, how long to make them for and the type of simple equipment that might be used. We strive to ensure that pupils are showing evidence of working scientifically in all our science lessons. These skills are made explicit to children, allowing them to observe their own progress in the subject over time. Over the course of their KS2 offer, children will be expected to use the following practical scientific methods, processes and skills:
In upper key stage 2, pupils should encounter more abstract ideas and begin to recognise how these ideas help them to understand and predict how the world operates. They should also begin to recognise that scientific ideas change and develop over time. They should select the most appropriate ways to answer science questions using different types of scientific enquiry, including observing changes over different periods of time, noticing patterns, grouping and classifying things, carrying out comparative and fair tests and finding things out using a wide range of secondary sources of information. Pupils should draw conclusions based on their data and observations, use evidence to justify their ideas, and use their scientific knowledge and understanding to explain their findings. Children will be expected to use the following practical scientific methods, processes and skills
Key Stage 1
As a result of our approach our pupils have a consistent science offer whichever class they are in. They can make links from their learning in science to other areas of the curriculum and recognise its relevance to their everyday lives as well as the importance of key scientific discoveries and breakthroughs that have contributed to the technologies available to them, including the impact of these on our academy values and wider British values.
We have curious and enthusiastic scientists who are eager to discuss and further their learning, knowledge and skills and confidently and accurately use scientific terminology to describe and explain their observations.
Our pupils use opportunities in science to deepen and challenge their own thinking and raise questions and lines of enquiry of their own. In doing so, they also recognise the importance of challenging the scientific explorations of others through their own investigations. They recognise that there are different types of scientific enquiry and develop their independence to recognise when and how to use these effectively also recognising the need for evidence, comparison and pattern seeking to give an explanation and communicate their thinking with others.
Key Stage 2
As a result of our approach our pupils have a consistent science offer, whichever class they are in. They can make links from their learning in science to other areas of the curriculum and recognise its relevance to their everyday lives as well as the importance of key scientific discoveries and breakthroughs that have contributed to the technologies available to them, including the impact of these on our academy values and wider British values.
Our engagement with the local environment ensures that pupils learn through varied and first-hand experiences of the world around them. Frequent, continuous and progressive learning outside the classroom is embedded throughout the science curriculum. Through various workshops, trips and interactions with experts and local charities, children have the understanding that science has changed our lives and that it is vital to the world’s future prosperity.
All pupils will have:
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