Curriculum
Science
Curriculum intent, implementation, and impact
Intent
“The important thing is to never stop questioning” – Abert Einstein
Our Science curriculum at HLC has ambitious expectations of achievement across all three disciplines within Science (Physics, Chemistry and Biology) for every child, so that our children make maximum progress and achieve their full potential. We provide a science curriculum which enables pupils to excel through exploring and discovering the world around them, and deepening their understanding of the world that we live in. We do this through weekly science lessons that are exciting, practical, hands-on experiences that ultimately encourage curiosity and develop children’s scientific skills.
Through the teaching of science across the whole of primary, we incorporate our school values: Belong, Respect, Inspire, Succeed and Enjoy. We believe that in order for our pupils to succeed, they must enjoy the learning that it is taking place during their science lessons and staff always strive to inspire and motivate the children in all science lessons.
Children at HLC are naturally curious and passionate about learning. At HLC, we provide a stimulating curriculum that nurtures children’s natural curiosity and their on-going knowledge and understanding of the world around them. We encourage children to ‘talk as a scientist’ to build on known vocabulary and to remain consistent with the high expectations of oracy within science. Our curriculum has been carefully considered to ensure children are exposed to all five enquiry types (fair testing, observation over time, classification, pattern seeking and research). There is a clear emphasis within our curriculum for our children to see themselves as scientist and to build on their ‘working scientific’ skills. This is achieved through regular opportunities to be curious within their learning.
At HLC we intend for all children to see themselves as scientist. We endeavour to inspire all children to recognise the importance of science within the world around them and for children to recognise the real-life role models who have made significant discoveries within the industry. Our children leave HLC with ambitious career aspirations within the field of science.
Implementation
“No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess” – Isaac Newton
All children at HLC have opportunities to build on their prior learning whilst questioning what they already know about the world around them. All the children at HLC know the five enquiry types, in which they use to question their understanding and participate in a range of scientific enquiries. Every science that is taught is linked to the enquiry types and aims to build on children’s ‘working scientific skills’.
Children in the EYFS are exposed to opportunities to nurture their natural curiosity and their on-going knowledge through hands-on, enquiry-based activities, children will experience the joy of learning ‘how’ and ‘why’. We seek to promote this open-mindedness and further develop their enquiring minds, so they eventually become independent learners moving into Key Stage 1. Making use of our fabulous forest area enables the children to explore and investigate within the school grounds.
All Key stage 1 children engage in structured science lessons weekly that relate to their topic. All sequences are progressive and allow Key Stage 1 children to build on their prior knowledge. Science lessons in key stage 1 follow the same structure of recapping prior learning, using flashbacks, where teachers encourage children to ‘talk as a scientist’. The key stage 1 science curriculum is hands-on and takes a practical approach to develop the children’s enquiry skills.
All children within key stage 2 have opportunities to embed and develop the scientific skills they have developed in key stage 1, by regularly planning scientific investigations relating to their topic. Key stage 2 children improve their knowledge of the three areas of science (physics, chemistry and biology) by continuing to be curious about the world around them and conduct their own scientific research. Upper key stage 2 children have opportunities to engage in their learning in HLC secondary’s labs, where they develop their scientific skills using high quality resources.
We encourage pupils to be confident to ask questions and not to be afraid of being incorrect, but instead viewing it as an opportunity to learn. The science curriculum across both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 is carefully structured in that it is progressive, focuses on key vocabulary, builds on prior knowledge and also embeds new skills.
Impact
Our science curriculum focuses on progression of knowledge and skills and discreet vocabulary progression forms part of all units of work. We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
- Summative assessment, based off teacher judgments, for children’s knowledge for each topic every half term.
- Summative assessment, based off teacher judgments, for children’s working scientific skills on a termly basis.
- Termly book dips with subject leader and senior leadership team.
- Pupil voice suggests pupil enjoyment towards science
- Pupil engagement in British Science week
- Pupil engagement in yearly Science fair
- Staff survey regarding confidence/ barriers to delivering science curriculum
- Termly book dip to ensure SEN children are accessing lessons (widgets, scaffolds, resources)
- Environment walks completed by subject leader to ensure classrooms include working walls and key vocabulary relating to the topic.
- A group of children who are keen scientist form the ‘Science Squad’ and are ambassadors for the subject.
- Subject leader attends cluster schools’ moderation to compare curriculum and child evidence
- Science is well represented on the schools social media.
By the time children leave our school they will be able to:
- Question the world around them and know how to answer their own questions with scientific evidence
- Plan, deliver and review a scientific investigation.
- Know how to use scientific equipment accurately
- Record and present data accurately
- Form predictions based on prior knowledge of the world
- Talk as a scientist using key scientific vocabulary that has been explicitly taught.
- Complete a scientific investigation safely by managing risks
- Recall a range of famous scientist
