Science  Curriculum Design

Intent

The National Curriculum is at the core of our Science curriculum. Our children at Hugo Meynell enter school with lively, inquisitive minds and a desire to explore the world around them.

Our school curriculum is designed to give every child opportunities to experience working scientifically so that they are able to create and satisfy their own curiosity. This is important because we want to give them the science skills and knowledge to enable them to apply these to everyday life.

Implementation

In designing our school curriculum, we have researched commercial schemes and have not found one that meets the needs of our children and context. We are confident that our Science curriculum is a strength of the school, partly due to the detail within the National Curriculum.

The National Curriculum provides a systematic progression of skills and knowledge at a year group level. We then use Headstart as an assessment tool to allow teachers to assess pupils at the end of each science unit. The outcome of the assessments and subsequent data, along with ongoing teacher assessment, allows judgements to be made on the attainment and progress of pupils and guides future teaching and learning.

In addition to this, we have created our knowledge organisers, which provide our outline medium term planning. These identify starting point, knowledge and skills to be taught, expectations at the end of the topic and core vocabulary.

Science is taught in topic blocks by the class teacher. Each block has an investigative approach. This is a strategy that enables children to achieve greater depth of knowledge and provides differentiation for the more able. Children are encouraged to ask their own questions and to use their emerging scientific skills to discover the answers.

Science CPD is encouraging all teachers to use precise questioning to both differentiate and support all children across the wide range of abilities.

Impact

By the time our children leave Hugo Meynell, we will have supported them to have developed the core skills of working scientifically and have experience of a wide range of science themes. This will enable them to build upon their science foundations as they start in Key Stage 3.