science
Intent, Implementation and Impact of the Science Curriculum
‘The future belongs to the curious. The ones who are not afraid to try it, explore it, poke at it, question it and turn it inside out.’
Science is cool! At Harnham Juniors science is essential in developing our children’s natural curiosity and understanding about the world around them. We tap into their insatiable appetites for scientific knowledge and instil perseverance so that they become confident scientists. Within our lessons, Harnham pupils are given cognitively challenging, practical and investigative opportunities to reveal wonders. Emphasis is placed on giving our budding scientists access to lively ideas and ways of working scientifically in a range of contexts. Throughout the process, they have time to think, do and talk science. As real scientists, the children share and publish their findings to their fellow, young, aspiring scientists. We look forward to taking the next generation on a wonderful journey through science.
Intent
It is our intent at Harnham Junior School to teach children scientific knowledge and skills which will positively impact on their future. We aim to deliver high quality teaching and learning opportunities to succeed in scientific activities. We want our children to be confident to question, to delve deeper and challenge respectfully. As in the wider scientific community, we want our children to communicate clearly and co-operate as part of team for the benefit of all.
Our curriculum for science aims to ensure that:
The children are given opportunities to further develop their scientific knowledge required to understand the world they live in.
They develop scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding through biology, chemistry and physics.
At Harnham Junior School the children are given opportunities to ask questions and to work scientifically through investigations.
We want our learners to feel assured in the subject and able to use their skills to work logically and systematically through enquiries. This attitude and way of working is not only important for the subject but is transferable to all areas of the curriculum.
Implementation
Pupils at Harnham Junior School participate in two hours science per week. We follow the National Curriculum Science programme of study.
The principal focus of science teaching at Harnham Junior School is to enable pupils to broaden their scientific view of the world around them. They do this through exploring, talking about, testing and developing ideas about everyday phenomena and the relationships between living things and familiar environments, and by beginning to develop their ideas about functions, relationships and interactions. In Years 5/6, they encounter more abstract ideas and begin to recognise how these ideas help them to understand and predict how the world operates. They ask their own questions about what they observe and make some decisions about which types of scientific enquiry are likely to be the best ways of answering them, including observing changes over time, noticing patterns, grouping and classifying things, carrying out simple comparative and fair tests and finding things out using secondary sources of information. They draw simple conclusions and use some scientific language, first, to talk about and, later, to write about what they have found out.
Pupils learn to work scientifically. Harnham pupils are taught to use the following practical scientific methods, processes and skills through the teaching of the National Curriculum Science programme of study content:
asking relevant questions and using different types of scientific enquiries to answer them
setting up simple practical enquiries, comparative and fair tests
making systematic and careful observations and, where appropriate, taking accurate measurements using standard units, using a range of equipment, including thermometers and data loggers
gathering, recording, classifying and presenting data in a variety of ways to help in answering questions
recording findings using simple scientific language, drawings, labelled diagrams, keys, bar charts, and tables
reporting on findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations, displays or presentations of results and conclusions
using results to draw simple conclusions, make predictions for new values, suggest improvements and raise further questions
identifying differences, similarities or changes related to simple scientific ideas and processes
using straightforward scientific evidence to answer questions or to support their findings.
Year 3 science
• Plants, including parts of plants, needs of plants and their life cycle.
• Animals, including humans, focusing on nutrition, skeletons and muscles.
• Rocks, including comparing rocks, looking at fossils and understanding how soil is made.
• Light, looking at how light is reflected, how shadows are formed and can change.
• Forces and magnets, focusing on attraction and repulsion of magnets, magnetic materials and the two poles of a magnet.
Year 4 science
• Living things and their habitats, including classifying living things and looking at changes to environments.
• Animals, including humans, focusing on eating: teeth, the digestive system and food chains.
• States of matter, including grouping materials, changing state, evaporation and condensation.
• Sound, looking at creation of sound through vibration and changes in pitch and volume.
• Electricity, including constructing a circuit and understanding conductors and insulators.
Year 5 science
• Living things and their habitats, including life cycles of a mammal, amphibian, insect and bird.
• Animals, including humans, focusing on changes from birth to old age.
• Properties and changes of materials, including dissolving, separating and reversible changes.
• Earth and space, looking at the movement of the sun, earth and moon.
• Forces, including gravity, air resistance, water resistance and friction.
Year 6 science
• Living things and their habitats, including classifying micro-organisms, plants and animals.
• Animals, including humans, focusing mainly on diet and exercise.
• Evolution and inheritance, looking at fossils, reproduction and adaptation.
• Light, looking closely at how it travels and how shadows are made.
• Electricity, analysing the function of lamps, buzzers, cells and switches.