Science
Intent:
At Bulford St Leonard’s, it is our aim to equip children with a strong understanding of the world around them whilst also developing scientific skills and knowledge that will allow them to think like scientists. We aim to stimulate the children's curiosity through practical experiments and help them to ask questions that challenge the status quo. We aim to create a culture within science that exudes excitement and allows for discovery and exploration. However, at the same time we want to ensure that key scientific principles are taught rigorously and consistently thus providing the building blocks for future learning. .
Implementation:
In ensuring high principles of teaching and learning in Science, we implement a curriculum that is progressive through the whole school. We have created a Science curriculum that ensures a progressive sequence of scientific knowledge, skills and vocabulary. The 2014 National Curriculum objectives and scientific skills have been specifically chosen for each term. The careful design of our curriculum gives the teacher a good structure from which to plan a five-week lesson blocks.
Progression documents and unit overviews have been created to provide teachers with a clear understanding of what knowledge has come before and the key learning that they will move onto in future years.
To support the overviews and progression documents, key information and vocabulary is outlined in a ‘knowledge organiser’.
We take the opportunity to celebrate science by taking part in British Science Week and focusing on the yearly theme they provide. This allows the children to work on science learning that may be outside of the curriculum or to revisit and review areas that have previous been learnt.
Impact:
Formative teacher assessment is completed throughout the year and misconceptions are consolidated accordingly. In Science, progress is measured through a child’s ability to know more, remember more and explain more. This can be measured in numerous ways in our units. The learning environment across the school is consistent with Science technical vocabulary displayed, spoken and used by all learners. Children who feel confident in their Science knowledge and enquiry skills will be excited about Science, show that they are actively curious to learn more and will see the relevance of what they learn in Science lessons to real-life situations and also the importance of Science in the real world.
The outcome of our Science curriculum will be children who not only have a rich subject knowledge with a broad range of skills, and are also able to think about the way the world works and their own future in it.
