SCIENCE
Our school’s vision has been collaboratively created with input from key stakeholders within our community. At the core of our curriculum lie the science principles, which serve as the foundation in which we plan for science, ensuring that students receive high-quality teaching, enhance their acquisition of scientific knowledge and increase their science capital.
Curriculum coverage
We hold the belief that science plays a crucial role in understanding the world we inhabit. Every insight we possess about the universe stems from scientific inquiry and experimentation. Our objective is to foster within our children a profound sense of wonder, curiosity, and reverence for the world, while equipping them with the ability to grasp and utilise the fundamental principles of science across the domains of biology, chemistry, and physics (represented as the ‘big ideas’ in our curriculum).
Our science curriculum has been designed in alignment with the National Curriculum to cultivate scientific knowledge, foster conceptual understanding, and promote proficiency in various types of inquiries essential for answering scientific questions. By imparting this knowledge, we aim to empower children with the skills and insights necessary to navigate the world of science both now and in the future.
Scientific vocabulary
Scientific vocabulary is progressive throughout our curriculum. We have outlined the key vocabulary that children are expected to acquire and utilise. These terms are explicitly taught, demonstrated by the teacher, and students are encouraged to incorporate them into their learning. Each unit’s vocabulary document outlines the progression of terms across year groups.
(See documents below)
Curriculum progression
Our science curriculum consists of two strands of knowledge:
Procedural Knowledge
Procedural knowledge has been considered when planning our science curriculum so children ‘know how to’ and ‘are able to’ apply their skills and knowledge with increasing automaticity throughout their school journey so that they achieve greater proficiency in their scientific enquiries. Procedural understanding of specific steps in scientific inquiry is required for pupils to develop their scientific thinking.
“Procedural understanding is the understanding of a set of ideas, which is complementary to conceptual understanding, but related to the ‘knowing how’ of science and concerned with the understanding needed to put science into practice. It is the thinking behind the doing.
(Gott and Duggan 1995), p. 26
Disciplinary knowledge
The acquisition of disciplinary knowledge, exemplified through working scientifically, is ingrained in our curriculum. This knowledge is integrated across different year groups, allowing children to revisit and enhance their understanding of how scientific knowledge becomes established and gets revised, as they progress through school.
This knowledge is represented in our curriculum ‘Learning Points’. As students progress, they apply these overarching aims to specific programs of study outlined in the National Curriculum, enabling us to develop detailed and specific learning outcomes. There is progression in the enquiries our students learn.
Substantive knowledge
Substantive knowledge encompasses the science content addressed within each year group. In our planning, this knowledge is articulated through precise ‘Learning Points’, representing the essential content we aim for children to grasp and retain. These learning outcomes are crafted by deconstructing the National Curriculum programmes of study into smaller, logically sequenced building blocks of knowledge.
‘Big Ideas’
Repetition and retrieval
Our Science curriculum is built upon high levels of repetition to ensure that our children can do more and remember more as they progress through school. Procedural knowledge is systematically revisited and enhanced from year one to year six. Repetition of knowledge ensures that by the end of Key Stage Two, our students possess a well-rooted ability to engage in scientific inquiry with increasing independence.
In alignment with the National Curriculum, key substantive knowledge is repeated and reinforced across and within all year groups. In our curriculum, the initial learning objective in each unit is to recall essential prior knowledge, laying the foundation necessary for children to develop the understanding we aim for them to acquire.
To reinforce learning, retrieval practice is employed throughout the units, ensuring that key knowledge is revisited and remembered using questioning, Memory Checks and Exit Tickets.
Assessment
We believe that assessment in science should be based on more than just knowing facts. Teachers employ a variety of assessment methods to evaluate students’ progress in their science learning. We assess the children’s ability to apply their knowledge with a final ‘Composite Task’ at the end of each unit. This provides information on the children’s ability to use a combination of Disciplinary and substantive knowledge.
Vocab progression documents
Living Things and Their Habitats
Long term plan year 1-6
References
Gott, R., and S. Duggan. 1995. Investigative Work in the Science Curriculum. Buckingham: Open University Press.
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