At Derwent Vale Primary and Nursery School, we are committed to providing all children with learning opportunities to engage in Science. This policy sets out a framework within which teaching and non-teaching staff can work, and gives guidance on planning, teaching and assessment. It has been developed through a process of consultation with school staff and governors. We recognise the importance of Science in every aspect of daily life; we encourage children to be inquisitive throughout their time at our school and beyond. The Science curriculum fosters a natural curiosity of the child, encourages respect for living organisms and the physical environment and provides opportunities for critical evaluation of evidence. We believe that Science encompasses the acquisition of knowledge, concept, skills and positive attitudes.

Intent

Our Science curriculum is knowledge and vocabulary rich, ensuring children gain a deep understanding of fundamental scientific knowledge and concepts as well as embedding key science specific vocabulary and terminology (Tier 3 vocabulary). In addition, children are encouraged to develop their scientific curiosity, intent and understanding by working scientifically.

Working Scientifically

At Derwent Vale, children will gradually build on their scientific skills throughout the Key Stages based on National Curriculum expectations.

Early Years

In Early Years, Science is taught through Knowledge and Understanding of the World. The children learn about the scientific world around them in their play and adult led activities. Our curriculum is designed to enable children to make sense of their physical world and community. Children are encouraged to be scientists by:

• Finding out about and showing curiosity and interest in features of objects, events and living things.
• Describing and talking about what they see, including noticing similarities and differences.
• Showing curiosity and asking questions about why things happen and how things work.
• Showing understanding of cause-effect relations.
• Noticing and commenting on patterns.
• Showing an awareness of change.
• Explaining their own knowledge and understanding, and asking appropriate questions of others.
• Investigating objects and materials by using all of their senses as appropriate.

Key Stage 1

• Asking simple questions and recognising that they can be answered in different ways.
• Observing closely, using simple equipment.
• Performing simple tests.
• Identifying and classifying.
• Using their observations and ideas to suggest answers to questions.
• Gathering and recording data to help in answering questions.

Lower Key Stage 2

• 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.

Upper Key Stage 2

• Planning different types of scientific enquiries to answer questions, including recognising and controlling variables where necessary.
• Taking measurements, using a range of scientific equipment, with increasing accuracy and precision, taking repeat readings when appropriate.
• Recording data and results of increasing complexity using scientific diagrams and labels, classification keys, tables, scatter graphs, bar and line graphs.
• Using test results to make predictions to set up further comparative and fair tests.
• Reporting and presenting findings from enquiries, including conclusions, causal relationships and explanations of and a degree of trust in results, in oral and written forms such as displays and other presentations.
• Identifying scientific evidence that has been used to support or refute ideas or arguments.

Implementation

Our science curriculum is delivered through a series of modules which are deliberately spaced throughout the academic year with opportunities to introduce and revisit key concepts. This approach enables staff to deepen pupil understanding and embed learning. Our curriculum maps clearly show how our CUSP curriculum delivers (introduces and revisits) the National Curriculum expectations for science within and across year groups. All Science modules are identified on year group specific yearly overviews using green boxes.

At Derwent Vale, we use the CUSP Unity Science curriculum. We have audited it against the National Curriculum requirements to ensure full coverage and added in enrichment activities where needed to ensure the NC is taught in full, as a minimum, and surpassed. As we have mixed-year classes, each teacher has a 2-year rolling curriculum map that shows exactly when each science topic will be taught. Modules enable pupils to study in depth key scientific understanding, skills and vocabulary. Each module aims to activate and build upon prior learning, including EYFS, to ensure better cognition and retention. Each module is carefully sequenced to enable pupils to purposefully layer learning from previous sessions to facilitate the acquisition and retention of key scientific knowledge. Each module is revisited either later in the year or in the following year as part of a spaced retrieval practice method to ensure pupils retain key knowledge and information.

We put an emphasis on sharing the big ideas with the children at the beginning of every module. National Curriculum objectives and how these links to prior learning are evident at the beginning of every module.

Development of Scientific skills

As well as ensuring pupils are taught key knowledge, each module is designed to offer pupils the opportunity to undertake scientific enquiries and develop their skills as a Scientist in asking questions, planning and carrying out experiments, collecting and analysing information and drawing conclusions.

All science lessons will incorporate the following elements:

• Explicit teaching of vocabulary.
• Revisiting of prior learning.
• Use of scientific vocabulary in learning.
• Reading.
• Working scientifically.
• Evidence of learning in pupil's books.

Knowledge organisers and Knowledge Notes

Accompanying each module is a Knowledge Organiser which contains key vocabulary, information and concepts which all pupils are expected to understand and retain. Knowledge notes are the elaboration and detail which help pupils acquire the content of each module. They support vocabulary and concept acquisition through a well-structured sequence that is cumulative. Each Knowledge Note begins with questions that link back to the cumulative quizzing, focussing on key content to be learnt and understood. Knowledge Organisers and Knowledge Notes are dual coded to provide pupils with visual calls to aid understanding and recall. Knowledge Organisers and Knowledge Notes are referenced throughout each module.

Examples of Knowledge Organisers and Knowledge Notes:

Impact

By the end of EYFS, pupils will have explored the natural world around them, made observations and drawn pictures of animals and plants. They will know some similarities and differences between the natural world around them and contrasting environments, drawing on their experiences and what has been read in class. They will understand some important processes and changes in the natural world around them, including the seasons and changing states of matter.

By the end of Key Stage 1, pupils will (amongst other things) have learnt common characteristic of living things, such as MRS GREN. They will know and explain the difference between things that are living, dead and things that have never been alive, know and explain what a habitat is and why plants and animals that live there are best suited to it, know and identify a variety of plants and animals in micro-habitats and habitats, know and explain what an animal is and how they get their food from other plants and animals, know, compare and explain the properties and suitability of everyday materials for particular uses, such as glass in windows or bricks for building, know and explain how the shape of everyday materials can be changed, for example by squashing, bending, twisting and stretching, explain how significant scientists have made useful things from knowing about the properties of materials, know that the earth rotates and explaining how day and night occurs.

By the end of Lower Key Stage 2, pupils will (amongst other things) know and explain that living things can be grouped in a variety of ways, such as vertebrate or invertebrate and flowering and non-flowering plants, know, use and explain the classification of vertebrates, such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals , know, use and explain the classification of invertebrates, such as snails and slugs, worms, spiders and insects, know and use classification keys to group, identify and name a variety of living things in their local environment, know and identify the parts of the human digestive system, such as the mouth, tongue, teeth, oesophagus, stomach, small and large intestine, know and identify producers, predators and prey in a food chain, know and explaining that household appliances run on electricity from mains or batteries, know, identify and explain the components of a single loop circuit, such as cells, wires, bulbs, switches and buzzers, know and explain how sounds travel through a medium to the ear as vibrations, know and explain that sound is the transfer of energy observe and know that some materials change state when they are heated or cooled, such as water evaporating or butter melting, know and explain the part played by evaporation and condensation in the water cycle.

By the end of Key Stage 2, pupils will (amongst other things) know, identify and explain the main parts of the human circulatory system and describe the functions of the heart, such as lungs, heart, aorta, pulmonary vein, left atrium, right atrium, left ventricle, right ventricle, arteries, veins and capillaries, oxygenated and deoxygenated, know, identify and explain the components and function of blood, such as plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, nutrients and oxygen, know and explain the impact of diet, exercise, drugs and lifestyle on the way their bodies function, know, describe and explain the ways in which nutrients and water are transported within animals, including humans, know and explain how living things are classified into broad groups according to common observable characteristics and based on similarities and differences, including micro-organisms, plants and animals, know and explain that living things produce offspring of the same kind, but normally offspring vary and are not identical to their parents, know, identify and explaining how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment in different ways and that adaptation may lead to evolution, know and explain how the brightness of a lamp or the volume of a buzzer is affected by the number and voltage of cells used in a circuit, know that light travels in straight lines to explain how objects are seen because they give out or reflect light into the eye, know and explain how dissolving, mixing and changes of state are reversible changes.