Science Curriculum

The importance of Science

At St Philip’s, we believe that science stimulates and excites children’s curiosity about the world in which they live.  Science is also a methodology, a practical way of finding reliable answers to questions we may ask about the world around us. We believe that scientific method is about developing and evaluating explanations through experimental evidence and modelling and that this encourages critical and creative thought. Throughout this subject, pupils understand how major scientific ideas contribute to technological change - impacting on industry, business and medicine and improving the quality of life. We believe that through science, children learn to question and discuss occurrences and issues that may affect their own lives, the direction of society and the future of our world.  

We believe that a broad and balanced science education is the entitlement of all children, regardless of ethnic origin, gender, class, aptitude or disability.  

Intent

Through teaching science, we aim to develop and achieve:

• Knowledge and conceptional understanding of important scientific ideas and processes and the ability to relate these to everyday experiences.  
• An understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science through different types of scientific enquiries that enable children to answer scientific questions about the world around them.  
• An understanding of the issue and implications of science, today and for the future.
• Curiosity and foster and interest in problem solving, exploration and discovery about the world around them. 
• Positive attitudes to science and explore its value for themselves, others and society.
• Spiritual, moral and cultural values and attitudes and prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life in our rapidly changing world. 
• Children to care and respect for the envoronment and the living things in it.
• Consistently high teaching of the science National Curriculum Skills
• Planning for continuity and progression.

Implementation

Science is taught as a discrete subject and is timetabled in on a weekly basis. The curriculum is sequenced enabling pupils to build upon their prior learning. Science is part of a rolling programme within school and due to the vertically grouped nature of the cohorts, it is necessary for certain year groups to be covering the same topic at the same time in order to ensure coverage and to allow them to fully access the science curriculum. Where a topic is repeated in a subsequent year group that has previously covered the topic, the skills covered illustrate the clear and progressive nature of our spiralling science curriculum through the progression document, knowledge on the topics covered develops as children move through school and ‘working scientifically’ skills are embedded in each of the topics the children cover. This allows pupils to build upon their prior knowledge and increases their enthusiasm for the topics whilst embedding this knowledge into the long-term memory.

All children are encouraged to develop and use a range of skills including observations, planning and investigation work, as well as being encouraged to question the world around them and become independent learners in exploring possible answers for their scientific based questions. Specialist vocabulary for topics is taught and built upon, and effective questioning to communicate ideas is encouraged. Concepts taught are reinforced by focusing on the key features of scientific enquiry, so that children learn to use a variety of approaches to answer relevant scientific questions. 

Science Week is held in March each year and a group of Key Stage 2 pupils is chosen to annually to attend the Science Festival at the University of Central Lancashire.

Science Long Term Plan 2022-2023

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