Intent

The National Curriculum for Science aims to ensure that all pupils:

● develop scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics

● develop understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science through different types of science enquiries that help them to answer scientific questions about the world around them

● are equipped with the scientific skills required to understand the uses and implications of science, today and for the future.

At Little Gonerby CE Academy, we encourage children to be inquisitive throughout their time at the school and beyond. The Science curriculum fosters a healthy curiosity in our children about the universe and promotes respect for the living and non-living. We believe science encompasses the acquisition of knowledge, concepts, skills and positive attitudes. Throughout the programmes of study, our children will acquire and develop the key knowledge that has been identified within each unit and across each year group.

Implementation

The acquisition of key scientific knowledge is an integral part of our science lessons.

The progression of skills for working scientifically are developed through the year groups and scientific enquiry skills are of key importance within lessons.

At Little Gonerby CE Academy, teachers create a positive attitude to science learning within their classrooms and reinforce an expectation that all children are capable of achieving high standards in science.

Our whole school approach to the teaching and learning of science involves the following;

• Science will be taught and planned from the National Curriculum documentation and arranged in topic blocks by the class teacher. Our strategy is to enable all children to be catered for through adapted planning suited to their abilities
• Planning is enhanced by the use of whole-school progression maps, so teachers are aware of the prior knowledge of year groups before planning units and individual lessons. This ensures that key concepts and prior learning is built on and developed rather than repeated.
• Key questions to start new topics are used to capture the children’s understanding of key vocabulary and to gauge children’s understanding.

Impact

The successful approach to the teaching of science at Little Gonerby CE Academy results in a fun, engaging, high quality science education, that provides children with the foundations for understanding the world that they can take with them once they complete their primary education.

So much of science lends itself to outdoor learning, and so we provide children with opportunities to experience this through our outdoor environment- such as our forest school, gardens and wildlife areas.