Science

“Together, we believe, achieve and enjoy”

Through our vision, we serve our community by providing an inclusive, happy, secure and caring Christian environment where all are valued and respected. We believe that God loves all his children unconditionally and values the uniqueness of the individual and recognise the diversity and range of contributions that each child can make. In our Science curriculum, we ensure that children value and respect the contributions of scientists and their findings.

Following the Church of England's Vision for Education 'Life in all its fullness' John 10:10, science comes from a creative-thinking mind, and we aim to provide the children with a range of experiences and experiments to enhance their learning. We provide a high-quality education within a creative, stimulating, encouraging and mutually supportive environment where children are enabled to develop the skills they require to become successful in Science.

Our 5 Crown Principles drive our Science Curriculum

Challenge

Through the ‘challenge’ curriculum driver we want our children relish challenges that being a scientist can bring. We want to ensure that the children have a secure understanding of the subject disciplines: Biology, Chemistry and Physics.

Resilience

Through the ‘resilience’ curriculum driver, we promote optimism and determination in Science. The Working Scientifically Cycle promotes resilience as children are encouraged to consider variables and value their mistakes. Children are encouraged to be resilient when working through the difference stages of scientific investigations.

Opportunities

Through ‘opportunities’, we raise aspirations to broaden our children’s horizons – opening their eyes to the myriad careers they might pursue. Through careful planning, we have chosen key scientists, including women in STEM for the children to aspire to be. We invite scientists into school to provide tangible role models to raise our pupils’ aspirations. We have a celebration of science once a year, hosting a science fair for all stakeholders to enjoy.  We want our pupils to have a clear understanding of the link between achieving well and having goals for the future.

Wellbeing

At Queen’s Park, we understand that happiness is linked to personal growth, health and development. We ensure our children are happy, healthy individuals. In biology, a huge focus is on wellbeing and looking after your body – physically and mentally. With ‘wellbeing’ as a curriculum driver, we give children the confidence to thrive in a diverse, global society and be respectful citizens with British and Christian Values at the core.

kNowledge

Through the ‘kNowledge’ curriculum driver, we encourage our children to be resourceful learners. It is uniquely challenging and coherent to our children. The knowledge imparted in science is crafted by our curriculum leader and science subject leader to ensure that all pupils achieve secure substantive and disciplinary knowledge in science. All our teachers teach with the aim to ensure pupils have sufficient knowledge to progress through primary school and beyond, using our science road maps, the knowledge is carefully mapped out across each year group in biology, chemistry and physics.

Being a Scientist means that disciplinary and substantive knowledge complement each other harmoniously. Before every unit of work, we ensure all children are aware of what ‘being a biologist’, ‘chemist’ and ‘physicist’ entails.

Through disciplinary literacy, all children read like scientists: reading graphs, tables, research, texts linked to science. Reading is the ‘beating heart’ of our science curriculum.

Science Long Term Plan

Science is taught four to five times throughout the year.

Progression documents

Our progression documents have been created by the Curriculum Leader and Science Subject Leader to ensure clear progress in the three disciplines of Science: Biology, Chemistry, Physics.  

The progression documents show key knowledge (substantive knowledge), key vocabulary and key skills (disciplinary knowledge) and assessment outcomes from EYFS – Year 6.

Vocabulary is V.I.T.A.L in Science 

Valued

We value vocabulary in Science and in everything we do.

Identified

Scientific vocabulary is identified by the Science subject leader and is explicitly planned for.

Taught

Vocabulary is explicitly taught in every lesson. Our crown planners are used as a teaching tool for key scientific vocabulary and the science medium term plans include additional vocabulary to be taught.

Applied

Once vocabulary is taught, it is applied. Children apply their vocabulary in their speaking and listening, writing and assessment outcomes in Science.

Learned

Vocabulary is revisited and relearned. Vocabulary sticks in the children’s long-term memory. Lesson by lesson, year by year, children revisit and relearn key scientific vocabulary.

Through an ‘explosion of experiences’, our youngest scientists are exposed to the foundations of their scientist learning. Carefully planned scientist knowledge, skills and experiences are provided for our children. High quality books, stories and rhymes are the beating heart of our science curriculum in EYFS. Scientific vocabulary is planned for. Staff are role models in demonstrating scientific vocabulary and this is further enhanced in our excellent provision. The foundations of scientific learning in EYFS is linked to Year 1 and beyond.

Year 1 to Year 6

Year on year, children will build upon their scientific knowledge, skills and vocabulary. The curriculum leader and science subject leader have created a meaningful, sequential learning journey through science. Careful curriculum thinking and planning ensures that our children have the subject knowledge and components embedded in their long-term memories.

Pedagogy

Both our staff and children are enthusiastic about science. Through ongoing CPD, we strive to ensure our teachers have expert knowledge of the science they teach. Our pedagogy is firmly based upon our curriculum intent of embedding concepts into long-term memory so that they are able to be recalled, to ensure substantive and disciplinary knowledge and skills can be applied fluently.

Our ‘Queen’s Park Quality First Teaching’ model ensures that lessons are effectively sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before and towards defined end points.

We firmly believe that all children should have full access, including those with additional needs, to our science curriculum therefore lessons are scaffolded where appropriate in order to meet the needs of all our children

The sequence of lessons across science follows the same structure:

Each lesson, within the sequence, follows the structure so prior knowledge is constantly revisited and transferred to long term memory.

Our Crown Planners support our children with vocabulary and key knowledge for each unit of work. They enhance children’s understanding of key concepts, present information clearly and promote appropriate discussion.

We understand that we may not see the true impact of our science curriculum on our children as our science curriculum is just the beginning of a lifetime of learning.

Our well-constructed and well-taught science curriculum leads to great outcomes. Our results are a reflection of what our children have learnt. At Queen’s Park, our philosophy is that broad and balanced leads to great outcomes and meeting end points at the end of each key stage. National assessments are useful indicators of the outcomes our children achieve.

We ensure all groups of children are given the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. We strive to ensure that our children are equipped with the skills (through a growth mindset approach) to fluently be able to retrieve key facts from their semantic memory.

The quality of our children’s work, at every stage, is of a high standard. All learning is built towards an end point and at each stage of their education, we prepare our children for the next stage.

We ensure all our children read to a stage appropriate level and fluency. Reading is the beating heart of our science curriculum. Through disciplinary literacy in science lessons, the impact of reading on the children’s science learning is paramount.

The impact of Queen’s Park science curriculum is measured through the following:

• Assessment at the end of each unit of work
• Vocabulary and knowledge are assessed at the end of each lesson and at the end of each sequence
• Pupil voice
• Progress evident in children’s books and record of experiences
• Seeking views of parents where appropriate