Intent

Science teaching at Highfield Community Primary School aims to give all children a strong understanding of the world around them, alongside gaining the specific skills and knowledge that will help them to think scientifically, gain an understanding of Scientific processes and an understanding of the uses and implications of Science, today and in the future.

Scientific Enquiry skills are deeply embedded in each topic that the children study; these topics are then revisited and built upon throughout their time at Highfield.

Some topics, such as plants, are taught in Key Stage 1 and then studied again in further detail throughout Key Stage 2. This model allows children to build upon their prior knowledge and increases their enthusiasm for topics while embedding this procedural knowledge into their long-term memory.

All children are encouraged to develop and use a range of skills including observations, planning and investigations, as well as being encouraged to question the world around them and become independent learners. This allows the children the necessary skills to explore possible answers for Science-based questions.

Scientific vocabulary is taught within each topic and is built up and extended throughout Key Stage 1 and 2. Children are encouraged to use effective questioning to communicate their ideas. The concepts that are taught will be reinforced by consistently and progressively focusing on the key features of Scientific Enquiry, this ensures that all pupils learn to use a variety of approaches to answer relevant Scientific Questions.

Implementation

At Highfield Community Primary School, we use a variety of teaching and learning styles in Science lessons. Our main aim is to develop children’s knowledge, skills and understanding.

This will be delivered through whole class teaching alongside enquiry based research activities. 

Questioning is extremely important, we encourage children to ask and answer Scientific questions.

Pupils have the opportunity to use a variety of data, such as statistics, graphs, pictures and photographs. ICT is an important factor in enhancing the children’s Scientific learning, this is used in Science teaching.

Children will take part in role-play and discussions and will be given opportunities to present their reports and findings to the rest of the class. 

At Highfield, Science teaching and learning involves the children in real Scientific activities such as investigating a problem within the local environment or carrying out a practical experiment and then analysing and reporting the results.

At Highfield, we want to overcome the stereotypes associated with Science and highlight the importance of Science within everyday life. We have incorporated modern day and local Scientists into our Curriculum. We ensure that our children learn through varied and first hand experiences of the world around them. We give our children the opportunity to take part in various workshops, trips and interactions with experts from the relevant Scientific fields. We ensure that our children understand that Science has changed our lives and is vital for the future development of the world.

Ultimately, we want to make sure that children enjoy Science and will develop to be motivated and passionate learners.

Within each class, there are a wide range of Scientific abilities. We provide the children with Quality First Teaching that ensures high quality, inclusive teaching for all pupils in a class. 

Our Quality first teaching includes;

• Differentiated learning- setting tasks of increasing difficulty and providing resources of different complexity, closely matched to the needs and ability of each child

• Strategies to support SEN pupils' learning in class,

• On-going formative assessment 

• Using quality questioning to promote child led learning 

• Setting open ended tasks which can have a variety of responses

• Allowing children to work in mixed ability pairs to support each other

• Teaching assistants, where possible, will be used to support the learning of individuals or groups of children.

Impact

At Highfield Community Primary School, our Science curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression from EYFS to Year 6. 

If Children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress. 

We measure the impact of our Science curriculum by:

• Pupil voice – This is used to further develop the Science curriculum, through questioning of pupils’ views and attitudes towards Science, to assess the children’s enjoyment of science, and to motivate learners.

• Teacher assessment of Learning objectives using the assessment statements for each Topic.

• Assessment of the children’s ability to recall the ‘Sticky facts’ associated with each Topic.

• Monitoring children’s work and books.