Science
At St. George’s Catholic school, our vision is to provide all pupils with an engaging and interesting Science curriculum. Children should be given opportunities to investigate their own ideas and build on the knowledge that they have of the world around them. We want children to be curious and teachers to facilitate children in following their curiosity.
Our aim is for both pupils and teachers to enjoy this subject. We want to make new discoveries in the classroom that surprise and intrigue us all. Through practical experiments, we want children to gain more knowledge and understanding of scientific processes.
Through school trips, use of the nature area and external visitors, it is our ambition for children to increase their science capital and engage in Science in school, at home and in further education.
Intent
We intend for all pupils to:
- Have good scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding of all areas of the Science curriculum.
- Use practical investigations to develop this knowledge understanding.
- Have a good understanding of key scientific vocabulary and be able to use this in their work across the curriculum.
- Use investigations to generate further questions.
- Develop skills in working scientifically including: asking questions; making predictions; setting up tests; observing and measuring; recording data; interpreting and communicating results and evaluating.
- Relate their scientific knowledge and understanding to the world around them and apply their knowledge, skills and understanding to other areas of the curriculum.
- Progress and build upon their scientific knowledge, skills and understanding from previous year groups.
- Understand and accept their responsibility as Catholics to be stewards of creation by understanding and taking an interest in the natural world.
Implementation
To enable children to make good progress in Science, our teachers have good subject knowledge. They are aware of the whole school curriculum and where their topic fits into it, therefore enabling them to build and develop children’s prior knowledge and skills.
Our whole school approach to the teaching and learning of science involves the following:
- Careful planning across year groups to ensure we implement a spiral curriculum.
- Most lessons to involve practical science investigations. This might be short experiments to reinforce scientific knowledge, or longer investigations to develop ‘Working Scientifically’ skills.
- Lessons should start with a question which enables children to focus their leaning and shares the learning objective.
- Key vocabulary will be shared with the class in every lesson so it is embedded in the learning.
- Knowledge organisers will be used to enable children to retain important knowledge on the scientific topic being taught.
- Short quizzes will be used in lessons to show progress in scientific knowledge and help children retain the information they need to know.
- Resources such as TAPs assessment will be used in each Science topic to ensure children have had the opportunity to develop skills in each area of ‘Working Scientifically’ including: asking questions; making predictions; setting up tests; observing and measuring; recording data; interpreting and communicating results and evaluating.
- Curriculum drivers such as Science week, school trips and external visitors will increase children’s Science capital and further develop their love and interest in this subject.
- Teachers will give children the opportunity to use the wildlife area and ensure children have opportunities to carry out investigations outside. This will help children develop their love of nature and their responsibility in looking after the world around them.
Impact
Our Science Curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. To assess the impact of the curriculum on the children we plan to include throughout the year:
- TAPs assessment to assess Working Scientifically skills.
- Short quizzes using Plickers to assess children’s knowledge before, after and during each topic.
- Pupil surveys to gauge children’s engagement and enjoyment of the subject.
- Book scrutinies to ensure the curriculum is progressive and all topics have been covered.
- The use of floorbooks to show children working Scientifically.
- Lesson observations to ensure Science lessons cover the knowledge, skills and understanding children require.
