In our rapidly evolving world science is a vital part of our curriculum intention with weekly one-hour lessons. Science stimulates and excites pupils’ curiosity about phenomena and events in the world around them. It also satisfies their curiosity with practical investigations wherein children use their observations and ideas to suggest answers to questions.
At Key Stage 1 pupils observe, explore and ask questions about living things, materials and physical phenomena. They begin to work together to collect evidence to help them answer questions, understanding that there may be different ways to answer these. They begin to evaluate evidence and consider whether tests or comparisons are fair. They share ideas and communicate them using scientific language, drawings, charts and tables with the help of ICT if it is appropriate. To foster children’s love of science, we hold a whole-school Science Day in which children rotate between various scientific investigations to satisfy their curiosity.
At Key Stage 2 pupils learn about a wider range of living things, materials and physical phenomena. They make links between ideas and explain things using simple models and theories. They think about the effects of scientific and technological developments on the environment and in other contexts. They carry out more systematic investigations taking accurate measurements using a range of scientific equipment and utilising test results to make predictions to set up further comparative and fair tests. They talk about their work and its significance, using a wide range of scientific language, conventional diagrams, charts and graphs with the help of ICT if it is appropriate.
