Science
Intent
At New Brancepeth Primary Academy, the aim of our science curriculum is to deliver a fun, practical and engaging high-quality curriculum that inspires the next generation to succeed and excel in science. We aim to increase children’s knowledge and understanding of the world and develop skills associated with science as a process of enquiry. Our science curriculum fosters a healthy curiosity in children about our universe, encourages respect for living organisms and the physical environment and promotes opportunities for critical evaluation of evidence to enable children to become enquiry-based learners, collaborating through research, investigations and evaluating experiences. We believe science encompasses the acquisition of knowledge, concepts, skills and positive attitudes.
Teachers will ensure that all pupils are exposed to high quality teaching and learning experiences. These will hook the children’s interest, enabling them to develop a sense of excitement and curiosity about natural phenomena. Pupils will be encouraged to ask questions about the world around them and work scientifically to further their conceptual understanding and scientific knowledge. The curriculum is designed to ensure that children are able to acquire key scientific knowledge through practical experiences: using equipment, conducting experiments and investigating, building arguments and explaining concepts confidently. Pupils will be encouraged to understand how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave, and analyse causes. It will provide opportunities for the critical evaluation of evidence and rational explanation of scientific phenomena as well as opportunity to apply their mathematical knowledge to their understanding of science, including collecting, presenting and analysing data. Children will be immersed in key scientific vocabulary, which supports in the acquisition of scientific knowledge and understanding.
Staff have developed a curriculum following the National Curriculum aims for science to ensure that all pupils:
- develop scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics
- develop understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science through different types of science enquiries that help them to answer scientific questions about the world around them
- are equipped with the scientific skills required to understand the uses and implications of science, today and for the future.
Our program of enrichment opportunities, which runs across our curriculum, is used to enhance the teaching and learning of science in our school. Many of our children do not have wider life experiences beyond the village or local area, therefore, activities are targeted to allow children to widen their experience of life beyond their immediate locality to encompass the wider world and universe. Science is a key aspect of this. It also supports our whole school priority of developing communication and language through developing subject specific vocabulary and providing a vehicle for discussion and explanation. To further support this, we have plotted resources boxes from Durham Learning Resources to ensure children have access to equipment, objects and texts to support them in their scientific enquiry and contextualising their learning. Our curriculum is also linked, where appropriate, to our core themes of family, community and the wider world through targeted Project Outcomes across the whole curriculum. These are identified within each topic. Staff knowledge is supported by a science expert, Phil Watkins, and our commitment to improving our Science offer to pupils by working towards the Primary Science Quality Mark.
The EYFS framework is structured very differently to the National Curriculum as it is organised across seven areas of learning rather than subject areas. The most relevant statements for Science are taken from the following areas of learning:
- Communication and Language
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Knowledge and Understanding of the World
Within our EYFS, children’s science skills are developed and extended through ongoing, levelled continuous provision and implicit and explicit challenges linked to the EYFS framework starting with maximising and exploiting opportunities to explore nature through outdoor learning.
We understand that it is important for lessons to have a skills-based focus, and that the knowledge can be taught through this. Pupils will acquire and develop the key knowledge that has been informed by the Programme of Study and builds towards identified ‘end points’ in accordance with National Curriculum expectations. Key skills are also mapped for each year group and are progressive throughout the school, which is key to supporting our mixed-age planning. Staff use skills and knowledge through dual objective planning to support meeting the needs of pupils they teach. This enables staff to effectively differentiate within lessons as the knowledge is the context in which the skills are taught.
Our whole school curriculum is planned on a two-year cycle, and this year (2023/24), we are covering Cycle B. This allows us to support mixed- age classes across school. Knowledge organisers are designed to support teacher subject knowledge and, where appropriate, children’s knowledge at Key Stage 2. If pupils are accessing content typically above their chronological age according to the National Curriculum, our dual objective planning is used to support differentiation. The curriculum has been designed to make as many cross-curricular links as possible to exploit opportunities for children to apply their knowledge within a range of contexts and make links within their learning e.g. making a lightbox with a working circuit or using knowledge and application of growing plants to support healthy eating topics in Design & Technology. We encourage parental engagement by inviting parents to join and support their children on school visits and by sharing knowledge organisers with parents termly.
Science Long-Term Plan
