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Intent
Our children will become scientists who use essential knowledge, concepts, methods and processes in order to effectively explain, predict and analyse whilst making links with prior knowledge and subject areas.
Children will explore, ask questions, collect and analyse data, develop explanations and solve problems. They will then use these scientific enquiry skills in a variety of contexts, seeking evidence to test their ideas and answer questions. For example, sorting materials to find out which are magnetic, observing how a snowman melts, researching where milk comes from, looking for patterns in plant growth, or investigating how a ball bounces on different floor surfaces. It is the search for evidence to answer scientific questions and develop scientific knowledge that makes these different activities science enquiry.
Implementation
This subject is not taught in isolation, but as part of cross curricular topics, with skills and knowledge of different subjects interwoven to enable children to make sense of their learning in context.
As we have classes of mixed year groups, our whole school curriculum consists of a two year cycle. Our curriculum plan ensures that all National Curriculum objectives for this subject are taught with spaced repetition to enable consolidation and mastery by the end of each phase (Y1/2, Y3/4, Y5/6).
The progression document for this subject clearly shows the milestones to be reached by the end of each phase and enables teachers to plan learning sequences that are progressive. Assessments are made using the progression document and this is passed on to the children’s next teacher at the end of the first year of the curriculum to ensure that they are aware of what has been taught, achieved and mastered and the gaps in learning that still need to be addressed. This ensures that our curriculum is progressive and reactive, building upon children’s prior knowledge and learning experiences.
This subject is also taught with reference to the context in which Roseberry children live and play. It is relevant to them and their locality.
Objectives to be learned are not always taught in the form of a lesson and there is continual provision in the form of daily routines and providing retrieval practice for previously learned concepts. Knowledge and skills are also taught and mastered during Cultural Celebration weeks and enrichment activities throughout the year.
Our curriculum has been devised in the interest of our children to ensure quality of provision to enable them to acquire and develop a deep body of knowledge. We are mindful that knowledge does not sit as isolated information in children’s minds and so our curriculum is progressive, with knowledge connected in schemata. It is taught in the following way across the school:
Engage
Hook learners in with a memorable experience
Set the scene and provide the context for learning
Ask questions to find out children's interests
Spark children's curiosity using interesting starting points
Develop
Teach facts and information for deeper understanding and knowledge
Demonstrate new skills and allow time for consolidation
Provide creative opportunities for making and doing
Deliver reading, writing and talking across the curriculum
Innovate
Provide imaginative scenarios that encourage creative thinking
Enable children to apply previously learned skills
Encourage enterprise and independent thinking
Provide opportunities for collaborative working and problem solving
Express
Provide environments for reflective talk
Create opportunities for shared evaluation
Celebrate and share children's success
Identify next steps for learning
Impact
Children speak as scientists, drawing upon essential knowledge, concepts, methods and processes in order to effectively explain, predict and analyse whilst making links with prior knowledge and subject areas.
All children meet Age Related Expectations with reference to the National Curriculum by the end of their learning phase (Y1/2, Y3/4, Y5/6) with a proportion achieving a level of mastery and deeper understanding that they are able to articulate and demonstrate with confidence.