SCIENCE Overview

Our Science Curriculum is designed to foster a curiosity about our world.  Our aims are to develop scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding as well as promoting a excitement around investigation, experimentation, exploration and discovery.

 

As teachers we ensure the curriculum has rich and varied experiences that build on children’s existing knowledge to ensure knowledge, skills and vocabulary are developed year on year to allow every child to fulfil their scientific potential. 

 

Intent

At Cooper Perry Primary School we believe that a high quality science education provides the foundations for understanding the world through all scientific disciplines - biology, chemistry and physics. Science is vital in our lives – understanding ourselves, others and the world around us.  We believe all pupils should be taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science. Through building up a body of key knowledge, skills and concepts, pupils should be encouraged to recognise the power explanations and foster a sense of curiosity. At Cooper Perry they should be encouraged to understand how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave, and analyse causes.

 

Science in our school is about developing children’s ideas, ways of understanding the world around them through building up knowledge, investigation and using and applying process these skills. The learning experiences centre around high quality teaching and learning experiences. We intend to provide all children regardless of ethnic origin, gender, class, aptitude or disability, with a broad and balanced science curriculum.

 

Implementation

In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in science, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school.

Planning for science is a process in which all teachers are involved to ensure that the school gives full coverage of, ‘The National Curriculum programmes of study for Science 2014’ and, ‘Understanding of the World’ in the Early Years Foundation Stage. Science teaching at Cooper Perry adapts and extends the curriculum to meet all children’s needs.  Cross-curricular links are forged wherever possible.  Science is taught as discrete units and lessons where needed to ensure coverage. At Cooper Perry the units are taught every year and some units are built upon in alternative year groups.  Teachers plan to suit their children’s interests, current events, their own teaching style, the use of any support staff and the resources available.

We ensure that all children are provided with rich learning experiences that aim to:

• Prepare our children for life in an increasingly scientific and technological world today and in the future.
• Help our children acquire a growing understanding of the nature, processes and methods of scientific ideas.
• Help develop and extend our children’s scientific concept of their world.
• Build on our children’s natural curiosity and developing a scientific approach to problems.
• Encouraging open-mindedness, self-assessment, perseverance and developing the skills of 3 investigation – including: observing, measuring, predicting, hypothesising, experimenting, communicating, interpreting, explaining and evaluating.
• Develop the use of scientific language, recording and techniques.
• Develop the use of computing in investigating and recording.
• Make links between science and other subjects.

Science is taught consistently, once a week for up to two hours, but is discretely taught in many different contexts throughout all areas of the curriculum. For example, through English, i.e. writing a letters about scientific issues to biographies of a famous scientist’s life.

 

Assessments within topics are teacher based and allow children to articulate scientific concepts clearly and precisely, assisting them in making their thinking clear, both to themselves and others.

 

Impact

The impact and measure of this is to ensure children not only acquire the appropriate age related knowledge linked to the science curriculum, but also skills which equip them to progress from their starting points, and within their everyday lives.

All children will have:

• A wider variety of skills linked to both scientific knowledge and understanding, and scientific enquiry/investigative skills.
• A richer vocabulary which will enable to articulate their understanding of taught concepts.
• High aspirations, which will see them through to further study, work and a successful adult life.