SCIENCE at St Martin's
Intent
At St Martin’s, we understand the importance for Science in developing the children’s understanding of the world through Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Our aim is for Science to be broad and balanced with a varied programme of experiences which shows progression from EYFS to Year 6. It will allow children to dive into discovery, have relevance to life and promote hands on and collaborative learning.
Our school Science follows the National Curriculum programme of study for KS1 and KS2 and Understanding the World for EYFS. Where possible, Science units are linked to year group topics or taught as discrete lessons to ensure coverage. This has led to some units being split across key stages to match year group topics. Key units such as Living things and their habitats are taught in each year group and the knowledge, skills and vocabulary are built upon. Where other units are revisited, these are not done consecutively. This ensures a higher order of skills can be explored, e.g. Electricity in Year 4 and then Year 6. Working scientifically objectives cover KS1, Lower KS2 and Upper KS2. From this we have picked out key objectives which need to be covered in each year group allowing for focused coverage.
Our Science units are designed to allow a range of cross curricular links both with other areas of the National Curriculum and our St Martin’s school curriculum. Within the working scientifically objectives, there are ample opportunities for links with Maths, English and Computing, e.g. recording data, reading measures, graphs, reading and locating sources of information, reporting findings in written and oral form etc. Alongside this it has strong links to our wellbeing curriculum with links to PSHE, working collaboratively and visits. This in turn links to the Our Place and Contribution to the Wider Society part of our curriculum by using the local area to support the children’s Science learning.
Implementation
The teaching of Science will be a balance between knowledge and skills in most lessons where possible. This will include a practical and a hands on approach using a range of resources wherever suitable. So that Science is accessible to all children and encompasses all abilities and needs, we provide differentiated questioning and support within lessons and it is encouraged for Science to be hands on and collaborative wherever possible. Our Learning Organisers, Vocabulary Progression and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) enable every child to be challenged appropriate to their needs.