Science

“Science is a way of looking at the world - it is about seeing how the world is, not through the filter of ideology, but through measured observation.”

Professor Brian Cox

Subject Coordinator: Mrs Nicola Hulse

Subject Link Governor: Katie Plant

External Links: Dr. Wendy Precious (Specialist Consultant in Primary Science and Learning and Primary Science Quality Mark Hub Leader and Assessor), SHEADS Science Hub.

Vision and INtent

VISION:

Children at Cheadle Primary School will use Science as a vehicle to broaden their minds, develop their curiosity and make sense of the world around them. We will enable the children to conduct practical investigations which are: meaningful, promote resilience and prepare them for life. We will promote divergent thinking in the face of adversity, creating children who can independently adapt situations and reach a conclusion.

INTENT:

Scientists have changed our way of life more drastically than television stars, statesmen or generals. At Cheadle Primary School, children are encouraged to appreciate the people and ideas that have shaped the way we live and afforded us a better understanding of our lives and the world around us.

Through engaging in scientific enquiry pupils revel in asking why? Children are challenged to discover how and why things work today, how they worked in the past, and how they are likely to work in the future.

As young scientists, the dynamic and progressive curriculum affords children the opportunity to understand our place in the cosmos and recognise that we share a common ancestor with all life on Earth, exposing pupils to the importance of preserving our unique blue planet and the life that inhabits it, now and for the future. Equally, children are encouraged to embrace what we don’t know, what we don’t understand and what we are yet to discover.

Through exploration and investigation, science within the school aims to build on and question existing evidence and theory; to equip children with the knowledge to appreciate the contribution of science to our world and provide an educational platform of opportunity and self-discovery.

Key Stage 1 Vision

Key Stage 2 Vision

Science Principles for KS1 Children.pdf

Science Principles for KS2 Children.pdf

Science Coordinator

My name is Mrs Hulse and I am the science coordinator at Cheadle Primary School. My role is to ensure that the teaching and learning of science across our school is relevant, engaging and enables all children to fulfil their potential. Most importantly though, I’m always striving to ensure that each and every member of our school community has the opportunity to appreciate the awe and wonder of this fascinating subject!

I studied Human and Applied Biology at degree level, so I am a real-life scientist with a passion for ensuring that our children at Cheadle Primary develop a love and enthusiasm for science! In line with my own ethos and current best practice, science at Cheadle Primary is taught practically wherever possible, and I’m proud of the fact that our amazing team take every opportunity to provide our children with hands-on activities that develop the competencies of working scientifically and scientific enquiry.

We are extremely lucky to have wonderful grounds here at Cheadle Primary, and our staff share my passion for making maximum use of our outdoor spaces as “extended classrooms.” Children also explore the local area as part of their science curriculum. The children learn about seasonal change, animal and plant life in our local area as well as conservation issues in and around Cheadle.

In addition to this, I also believe that enrichment and wider opportunities should run through the veins of any effective science curriculum and it does just that here at Cheadle. Now that life is returning to normal following the Covid Pandemic, I am keen for our children to go out on educational visits and also to welcome visitors in to school to enrich our curriculum on-site. We recently held a Crime Scene Investigation day, where every class in the school experienced the wonder and scientific principles of forensic science!

As Science coordinator, I am confident, knowledgeable and enthusiastic and my passion for the subject can be traced right back to my experiences of science whilst at school. As a result, I now find great pleasure in undertaking extensive CPD and participating in local networks. We are very proud to have achieved our Science Quality Mark, which is a testament to the dedication of the whole staff team in delivering a fantastic science curriculum!

Curriculum and implementation

Teachers create a positive attitude to science learning within their classrooms and reinforce an expectation that all pupils are capable of achieving high standards in science.

The school’s aims are to:

Through our planning, we involve problem solving opportunities that allow children to apply their knowledge, and find out answers for themselves. Children are encouraged to ask their own questions and be given opportunities to use their scientific skills and research to discover the answers. This curiosity is celebrated within the classroom. Planning involves teachers creating engaging lessons, often involving high-quality resources to aid understanding of conceptual knowledge. Teachers use precise questioning in class to test conceptual knowledge and skills, and assess pupils regularly to identify those children with gaps in learning, so that all pupils keep up.
We build upon the knowledge and skill development of the previous years. As the children’s knowledge and understanding increases, and they become more proficient in selecting, using scientific equipment, collating and interpreting results, they become increasingly confident in their growing ability to come to conclusions based on real evidence.
Working Scientifically skills are embedded into lessons to ensure these skills are being developed throughout the children’s school career and new vocabulary and challenging concepts are introduced through direct teaching. This is developed through the years, in-keeping with the topics.
Teachers demonstrate how to use scientific equipment, and the various Working Scientifically skills in order to embed scientific understanding. Teachers find opportunities to develop children’s understanding of their surroundings by accessing outdoor learning.
Children are offered a wide range of extra-curricular activities, visits and trips to complement and broaden the curriculum. These are purposeful and link with the knowledge being taught in class.

Science teaching is good when....

Children are encouraged to ask their own questions and be given opportunities to use their scientific skills and research to discover the answers. This curiosity is celebrated within the classroom.
Teachers ask a range of questions which enable all children to take part, listening carefully to answers and taking learning forward, using open and closed questions and allowing children time to think.
Planning involves teachers creating engaging lessons, often involving high-quality resources to aid understanding of conceptual knowledge
Teachers use precise questioning in class to test conceptual knowledge and skills, and assess pupils regularly to identify those children with gaps in learning, so that all pupils keep up.
New vocabulary and challenging concepts are introduced through direct teaching. This is developed through the years, in-keeping with the topics.
Working Scientifically skills are embedded into lessons to ensure these skills are being developed throughout the children’s school career. The key knowledge for each topic and across each year group is mapped across the school and checked at the end of each science topic.
Teachers demonstrate how to use scientific equipment, and the various Working Scientifically skills in order to embed scientific understanding.
Teachers find opportunities to develop children’s understanding by accessing outdoor learning.

Science teaching is good when pupils say....

We apply our ‘working scientifically skills’ to solve problems, explore, observe and investigate.
We ask questions and work together to discover the answers
Science has a wow factor and promotes a sense of awe and wonder
Our learning is enhanced by outdoor learning , specialist visitors and we have access to quality resources
We are involved in creating and carrying out investigations and can share and explain our ideas and conclusions

Scientific Knowledge and Conceptual Understanding

The programmes of study describe a sequence of knowledge and concepts. While it is important that pupils make progress, it is also vitally important that they develop secure understanding of each key block of knowledge and concepts in order to progress to the next stage. Children’s starting points are identified at the beginning of each science topic and the children are able to convey and record what they know already.

At the end of the block, children’s knowledge is checked in line with the key knowledge identified prior to the teaching block. Pupils should be able to describe associated processes and key characteristics in common language, but they should also be familiar with, and use, technical terminology accurately and precisely.

They should build up an extended specialist vocabulary and teachers ensure that this is developed within each lesson and throughout each science topic.

The science curriculum ensures that children are provided with regular opportunities to apply their mathematical knowledge to their understanding of science, including collecting, presenting and analysing data. Through use of the KWL strategy, children are also able to suggest what they would like to learn at the start of each teaching sequence and this ensures that teachers are able to adapt the programme of study to ensure that this is informed by children’s interests and to maximise their engagement with and motivation to study science.

The Nature, Processes and Methods of Science

‘Working scientifically’ specifies the understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science for each year group and this is embedded within lessons and focuses on the key features of scientific enquiry, so that pupils learn to use a variety of approaches to answer relevant scientific questions. These types of scientific enquiry include: observing over time; pattern seeking; identifying, classifying and grouping; comparative and fair testing (controlled investigations); and researching using secondary sources. Pupils are given opportunity to seek answers to questions through collecting, analysing and presenting data.

Spoken Language

The National Curriculum for science reflects the importance of spoken language in pupils’ development across the whole curriculum – cognitively, socially and linguistically. At Cheadle Primary, science lessons provide a quality and variety of subject specific language to enable the development of children’s confident and accurate use of scientific vocabulary and their ability to articulate scientific concepts clearly and precisely. They are encouraged and assisted in making their thinking clear, both to themselves and others, and teachers ensure that pupils build secure foundations by using discussion to probing and remedying their misconceptions.

We show science is great by....

An active learning environment, making effective use of our Cheadle Primary School Science Principles, and relevant Working Scientifically posters for age phase on the working walls during science topic coverage.
Children being encouraged to ask and answer questions and discuss their work and ideas.
Children devising and conducting their own investigations within the context of the relevant curriculum content, as well as being given opportunities to develop their working scientifically skills.
Children recording their findings in a variety of ways.
Children showing enjoyment in the activities they are undertaking.
The cross curricular teaching of science.

Core Knowledge and skills

Please click on the links below to see our subject progression documents for science.

Science Core Knowledge Progression document

Science skills progression grid

Science long term plan

assessment

Children’s progress is continually monitored throughout their time at Cheadle Primary School and is used to inform future teaching and learning. By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the matters, skills and processes specified in the relevant programme of study as set out in the National Curriculum. These are set out as statutory requirements. We also draw on the non-statutory requirements to extend our children and provide an appropriate level of challenge.

Children receive effective feedback through teacher assessment, both orally and through written feedback in line with the success criteria. Children are guided towards achievement of the main objective through the use of process based ‘success criteria’, provided by and explained by the teacher. Children will have these to refer to in the lesson, where they will be evident in their books and used to identify areas of difficulty by children and teachers when reviewing and assessing work. Children will also make effective use of self and peer assessment against success criteria, encouraging them to reflect upon their own learning and that of others.

Assessment for learning is continuous throughout the planning, teaching and learning cycle. However children are more formally assessed half termly in KS1 and KS2 using a variety of methods:

Observing children at work, individually, in pairs, in a group, and in classes.
Questioning, talking and listening to children
Considering work/materials / investigations produced by children together with discussion about this with them.
The use of more formal assessments are used in KS1 and KS2 to assess the children’s key identified knowledge at the end of a topic block.

In EYFS, we assess the children’s Understanding of the World according to the Development Matters statements and some aspects of Expressive Arts Design are also science based.

cultural capital and enrichment

Cultural capital is the accumulation of knowledge, behaviours, and skills that a child can draw upon and which demonstrates their cultural awareness, knowledge and competence; it is one of the key ingredients a pupil will draw upon to be successful in society, their career and the world of work.

In science, Cultural Capital can be gained in many ways;

- from the study of differing cultures and backgrounds both internationally and locally

- Opportunity to explore how to think and what you know

- Encouraging a curiosity about the scientific world.

What our pupils say

Year 1

I love science! We get to do lots of experiments.

I like using the magnifying glasses to look at things to see what they look like up close!

I like going outside and finding out about the plants and animals on the field.

Year 2

I love that we are always learning new things and building on what we learned last year.

I like going outside to learn about minibeasts and their lifecycles.

Year 3

I like our practical science lessons and experiments because they help us to learn in a fun and interesting way.

Year 4

I enjoy our exciting activities and experiments like making exploding volcanoes and finding out about how acid damages our teeth.

I enjoyed going out into Cheadle and helping to keep the animals safe by collecting litter.

Year 5

The best science lessons are when we learn by getting stuck in and finding out answers to questions ourselves.

Year 6

I enjoy developing my knowledge in science – I always feel like I go from knowing nothing to becoming an expert! We are given lots of opportunities to find out for ourselves by investigations.