Curriculum Statement

Intent

We offer a range of topics, covering all aspects of knowledge and skills required to meet the aims of the National Curriculum. We use the STEM Learning Scheme to guide our planning in years 1-6. By promoting an enquiry based approach to Science, this allows our children the chance to question and consider, and debate and discover what is occurring to themselves and the wider world now, and be able to predict how things might behave in the future. We believe science education provides the foundations for understanding the world as well as how this subject has changed our lives and is vital to the world’s future prosperity. Through the use of dual objective teaching - designed to cover both knowledge and skills- children will become confident and proficient in conducting investigations as well as having a broad science knowledge across all elements of the curriculum. Children will also develop their interest and curiosity about Science through a series of lessons offering skills progression, knowledge progression and offering children the opportunity to ask questions and demonstrate their skills in a variety of ways. The topics offer the chance for children to develop scientific enquiry through Science  and the world around them to further enhance their personal, social and emotional development and cultural appreciation.

The aims of teaching Science in our school are:

• To engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, investigate and observe  the world around them.
• As pupils progress through school, they should begin to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of Science. They should also know how Science reflects and shapes our history, and contribute to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation.
• To produce investigative and enquiry work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences.
• To become proficient in scientific enquiry and the understanding of the world around them
• To evaluate and analyse  science investigation using the language of Science,
• To know about scientists and the contribution they have made to discoveries and scientific principles. 

Special Educational Needs Disability (SEND) / Pupil Premium / Higher Attainers

   At St Margaret Mary our aims are:

• To ensure full entitlement and access to high quality education within a broad, balanced and relevant curriculum;

• To identify barriers to learning as early as possible;

• To reach high levels of achievement for all so that children can reach their full potential;

• To meet individual needs through a wide range of provision, providing adaptation and differentiation that aims to remove any barriers to learning;

• Where children are underachieving and/or identified as having special educational needs, the school provides for these additional needs in a variety of ways and might use a combination of these approaches to address targets identified for individual pupils:

• High quality teaching is our first step in responding to pupils who have SEN. This will be differentiated for individual pupils.

• Other small group work;

• Class  and individual support where possible;

• Further differentiation of resources.

 Any children with identified SEND, have an EHCP or in receipt of pupil premium funding may have work     additional to and different from their peers in order to access the curriculum dependent upon their needs.   As well as this, our school offers a demanding and varied curriculum, providing children with a range of   opportunities in order for them to reach their full potential and consistently achieve highly from their own starting points.

Implementation

 Science is taught through the STEM Learning Scheme from Years 1-6 and supplemented with resources from the Cornerstones Curriculum. It is planned to ensure progression of skills and knowledge. Each year group covers the areas of the National Curriculum through the STEM Learning topics. 

  At St Margaret Mary, all children from Year One upwards have their own Science book which they add to and build upon throughout each year. This allows the children to expand their knowledge of science and   to plan, carry out and evaluate investigations.

 The sequencing of topics ensures that children have the substantive knowledge and vocabulary to   comprehend subsequent topics fully. Each topics place in the year has also been carefully considered.   For example, topics that involve growing plants or observing animals are positioned at a suitable time of   year to give children the best possible opportunity to make first-hand observations. Within all the science   topics, disciplinary knowledge is embedded within substantive content.

EYFS

  Science at Foundation Stage is covered in the ‘Understanding the World’ area of the EYFS Curriculum,   which is covered through different Cornerstones Projects. It is introduced indirectly through activities that   encourage every child to explore, problem solve, observe, predict, think, make decisions and talk about the world around them.  During their first years at school our children will explore creatures, people, plants and objects in their natural environments.  They will observe and manipulate objects and materials to identify differences and similarities. They will also learn to use their senses, feeling objects or listening to sounds in the environment, such as sirens or farm animals. They will make observations of animals and plants and explain why some things occur and talk about changes. Children will be encouraged to ask questions about why things happen and how things work. They might do activities such as increasing the incline of a slope to observe how fast a vehicle travels, or opening a mechanical toy to see how it works. Children will also be asked questions about what they think will happen to help them communicate, plan, investigate, record and evaluate findings.

Key Stage 1

  In Year 1, children start the autumn term with Everyday Materials, linking this learning to the design and technology project Shade and Shelter. In the Animals including Humans topic, they learn about parts of the human body and the senses. In the spring topic Pushes and Pulls, children will learn about everyday forces and perform their own investigations linked to these. In Seasonal Changes, they learn broadly about seasonal changes linked to weather, living things and day length. They revisit some of this learning in the following summer term project  Plants. They finish with the project Light and Shade. 

In Year 2, children begin the autumn term with the topic Animals including Humans, learning about the survival needs of humans, before expanding to study animals within their habitats in the topic Living Things and their Habitats.   Building on learning from Year 1, children learn about the uses of materials in the spring project Uses of Everyday Materials and begin to understand changes of materials through simple physical manipulation, such as bending and twisting. Electricity is introduced in Year 2 with the study of the Building Circuits topic. The summer topic of Plants is covered with children observing what plants need to grow and stay healthy. There are lots of hands on opportunities for children to build on their learning about plants from both EYFS and Year 1. 

Lower Key Stage 2

 Having learned about human body parts, the senses and survival in Key Stage 1, children now focus on   specific body systems and nutrition in Key Stage 2. In the autumn term of Year 3, they learn about the   skeletal and muscular system in the topic Animals including Humans. This learning again links to other animals, with children identifying similarities and differences. Children also learn about healthy diets   alongside the autumn term design and technology project Cook Well, Eatwell. In the spring term,   properties of materials are revisited in the topics of both Rocks and Forces and Magnets. In Forces and Magnets children will be identifying magnetic materials and learning about the non-contact force of magnetism. They also begin to learn about contact forces, investigating how things move over surfaces. Children begin to link structure to function in the summer Plants topic, identifying the plant parts associated with reproduction and water transport. Children finish the year with the project Light, where they  are explicitly introduced to the subject of light, with children learning about shadows and reflections,   revisiting and building on vocabulary from Key Stage 1, including opaque and transparent.

In the autumn term of Year 4, children learn about Sound, with children  identifying how sounds are made and travel. They learn and use new vocabulary, such as pitch and volume, and identify properties of materials associated with these concepts. Then the topic of Animals including Humans will build upon learning from previous years.  In the spring term topic States of Matter, children learn about solids, liquids and gases and their characteristics. They understand how temperature drives change of state. Children will then study Living Things and their Habitats, learning about how different species adapt to the world around them and create their own habitats. Finally, in the summer term, children study electricity by creating and recording simple circuits in the topic Electricity. They also build on their knowledge of the properties of materials, identifying electrical conductors and insulators.

 Upper Key Stage 2

 In the autumn term of Year 5, children broaden their knowledge of forces, including gravity and air and   water resistance, in the topic Forces. They revisit learning from design and technology projects, including Making It Move and Moving Mechanisms, to explore various mechanisms and their uses. Their knowledge of gravity supports the autumn term project Earth and Space, so they can understand the forces that shape planets and our solar system. They also develop their understanding of day and night, first explored in the Year 1 project Seasonal Changes. Having learned that animals and plants produce offspring in earlier projects and having already studied simple plant and animal life cycles, children now focus on the human life cycle and sexual reproduction in the spring term topic Animals including Humans. In the summer term project Properties and Changes of Materials, children revisit much of their prior learning about materials’ properties and learn new properties, including thermal conductivity and solubility. To this point, children have learned much about reversible changes, such as melting and freezing, but now extend their learning to irreversible changes, including chemical changes.

In Year 6, the final body system children learn about is the circulatory system and its roles in transporting   water, nutrients and gases. Children learn about this in their autumn term topic, Animals including Humans. In the spring term, the topic Living Things and their Habitats consolidates all their prior learning and draws together themes and ideas and invites children to investigate these. Children also build on their knowledge about electrical circuits from Year 4, now learning and recording  standard symbols for circuit components and investigating the function of components and the effects of   voltage on a circuit in the topic Electricity. In the summer project Light, children recognise that light travels in straight lines from a source or reflector to the eye and explain the shape of shadows. Finally, in the project Evolution and Inheritance, children learn about inheritance and understand why offspring are not identical to their parents. They also learn about natural selection and how  this can lead to the evolution of a species.

 Investigations, Knowledge Organisers, and key vocabulary are an important part of the STEM Learning scheme. This allows children to have a clear understanding of how to carry out investigations. This is introduced in Y2  and investigation terminology such as independent variable, dependant variable, control variables, hypothesis, evaluation and data analysis is built upon as children journey throughout the school. This allows independent investigative work which children will be proficient and confident in by the time they leave in Y6, preparing them for KS3 and beyond.

 Enrichment days and cross curricular learning trips also supplement our science curriculum allowing all   children to experience the world around them. For example, Y4 and Y6 have outside agencies in to look at electricity and the water cycle. Children in the Early Years have chicks and caterpillars delivered to explore life cycles and how things grow. As part of their ‘Grow, Sow and Farm’ module, Y5 visit a local farm to look at habitats and life cycles. Year 1 also visit Stocks Wood as part of their learning about senses.  

Impact

Science learning is loved by teachers and pupils across our school. Teachers have high expectations where quality of evidence can be presented in a variety of ways. Children are given opportunities to explore science about the world around them. All children use technical vocabulary accurately and pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the matters, skills and processes specified. Children are confident using a range of materials for investigations and can talk about how science and scientists have made an impact on our ever changing global society. Children improve their enquiry skills and inquisitiveness about the world around them, and their impact through science and design on the world. Children will become more confident in analysing their work and giving their opinion on their own experiments and investigations and show competences in improving their resilience and perseverance by evaluating and improving their work. Children in school can speak confidently about their science work and their skills and are proud of the work that they do in science. 

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Assessing children’s understanding of knowledge and topic linked vocabulary before and after the topic is taught.

• Summative teacher assessment of pupil discussions about their learning.

• Images and videos of the children’s practical learning.

• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).

• Moderation cluster meetings where pupil’s books are scrutinised and there is the opportunity for a dialogue between teachers and schools to understand their children’s work

• Annual reporting of standards across the curriculum.

• Recording attainment on Cornerstones.

  Constant professional dialogue between colleagues about the attainment of pupils.