Science
Science
Intent
At Sandbach Primary Academy, we encourage children to discover and develop excitement and curiosity about the world around them and aim to instill a passion for the sciences. Science teaching at Sandbach Primary enables children to acquire key skills such as making predictions, observations, conclusions and designing and developing experiments. As children progress through the school, they build their scientific knowledge and are nurtured to develop greater independence in planning and carrying out fair and comparative tests, to answer a range of engaging scientific questions. The science scheme ensures that children have a varied, progressive and well-mapped-out science curriculum that provides the opportunity for progression across the full breadth of the science national curriculum for KS1 and KS2. We strive to develop inquisitive and enthusiastic scientists who experience excitement and curiosity about natural phenomena, which they carry with them throughout their lives.
Implementation:
At Sandbach Primary Academy, science is taught through a two-year rolling cycle across each key phase; EYFS, Key Stage 1, Lower Key stage 2and Upper Key Stage 2. The curriculum has been planned to enable effective progression and the exploitation of cross curricular links, with a balance of Biology, Physics and Chemistry teaching over each key phase.
At Sandbach Primary Academy, science lessons begin with the sharing of which specific scientific discipline we will be focused on and clear links to previous learning made. An engaging scientific question, designed to elicit curiosity and discussion, is then shared with the class. Children are encouraged to talk and share their thinking and prior knowledge in response to this, then suggest how we might find an answer through testing or investigation. The acquisition of key scientific knowledge and vocabulary is an integral part of our science lessons, where it is explicitly taught through high quality teaching, research and experimentation. The progression of skills for working scientifically are developed through the key stages with gradual release of teacher modelling, and scientific enquiry skills are of great importance within lessons. Each lesson, children are challenged to think independently and complete tasks and investigations designed to grow their knowledge and progress their scientific skillset. Activities are effectively differentiated so that all children have an appropriate level of support and challenge. Learning is reviewed with the children at the end of each lesson, and they are encouraged to share ideas, results and conclusions with the class.
As children move through the key phases, scientific knowledge and enquiry skills are developed with increasing depth and challenge. The sequence of lessons taught helps to embed scientific knowledge and skills, with each lesson building on previous learning, then growing across each key phase.
Impact:
In science, there is ongoing teacher assessment to ensure that the children are keeping up with the pace of the curriculum and achieving our goals. The school tracks achievement in science against the clear end points developed to ensure that children are working within the curriculum expectations for their year group.
Science books and careful observations are key to capturing pupil work and ongoing assessment questions. Talking to pupils is key to the continual refinement and development of the science curriculum. Regular pupil voice conferences provide valuable feedback which is used to assess pupil’s understanding and the success of units of work.