Introduction

At The Gateway Primary Academy, science is a key part of our topic based curriculum. We recognise that, ‘A high-quality science education provides the foundations for understanding the world through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics’ (The National Curriculum, 2014).

We have worked hard to plan a progressive science curriculum, which meets the needs of our pupils. We teach science through our topic based approach and use discrete units where necessary. One of our key aims of our science teaching is to promote excitement and curiosity through scientific questioning.

The key aims of our science teaching are:

• Develop a secure understanding of the knowledge taught within the Science National Curriculum.
• Preparing our children for life in an increasingly scientific and technological world. 
• Fostering concern about, and active care for, our environment – linked to our work on global learning in geography.
• Our children acquire a growing understanding of scientific ideas. 
• Develop and extend our children’s scientific concept of their world. 
• Developing our children’s understanding of the international and collaborative nature of science. 
• Develop our children’s knowledge of famous scientists and their impact on science.
• Encouraging the development of resilient and positive attitudes to science.
• Building on our children’s natural curiosity and developing a scientific approach to problems.
• Encouraging open-mindedness, self-evaluation, perseverance and responsibility.
• Developing our children’s social skills to work independently and cooperatively with others when carrying out investigations.  
• Providing our children with an enjoyable experience of science, so that they will develop a deep and lasting interest and may be motivated to study science further. 

Skills  

• Giving our children an understanding of scientific processes.  
• Helping our children to acquire practical scientific skills. 
• Developing the skills of investigation - including observing, measuring, predicting, hypothesising, experimenting, communicating, interpreting, pattern seeking, explaining and evaluating. 
• Developing the use of scientific vocabulary, recording and techniques. 
• Developing the use of computing in investigating and recording. 
• Enabling our children to become effective communicators of scientific ideas, facts and data.
• Enabling our children to work scientifically, conducting fair tests.
• Allow children to use scientific skills across the curriculum. 

How will your child be introduced to Science in the early years?

Children in the foundation stage are taught the science elements as indicated in the Development Matters curriculum through “Understanding of the World”.  Pupils are given lots of opportunities to experience, explore and investigate, both in the classroom and the outdoor learning area. These may be teacher-led activities or child-initiated learning with continuous provision. Staff ensure that equipment, space and resources help to develop pupils’ curiosity for scientific enquiry and exploration and help children to begin to develop their scientific curiosity that will be enhanced as they go through the school.

How is Science developed across the school?

As scientists, pupils are taught to question, observe, classify, predict, create a fair test and analyse outcomes through a variety of practical investigations linked to topics ensuring Science learning is meaningful and fun. Questioning is a key part of our science teaching and at the beginning of each unit our pupils are encouraged to ask scientific questions and revisit them throughout the unit. Our pupils are actively encouraged to use non-fiction books, search engines and their home learning to develop their Science learning further.

Pupils learn key vocabulary/scientific terminology to be able to explain processes and outcomes accurately and through a range of scientific inquiry e.g. observation over time, pattern seeking. Key vocabulary is carefully planned for, across the school, to ensure children are given the opportunity to revisit and build on previous learning.

Our pupils use our school grounds where possible to develop their first hand experiences in Science, especially when exploring the seasons. We have a wide variety of trees, which supports our pupils in developing their understanding of British trees. We also use trips and online workshops to enhance our pupils learning in science.

Please look at our topic webs on the curriculum by class pages for further information on the Science objectives your child will be taught term by term. 

Oracy Skills

As part of our whole school initiative, we aim to improve speaking and listening skills through all subjects including Science.  Our children are presented with planned opportunities to ask questions, present their findings and provide explanations using high quality sentence stems to model their responses.  Children are encouraged to listen to one another actively and to respond and debate responsibly and respectfully.  Primary science-friendly resources such as Explorify and use of our Working Scientifically Butterflies guide our pupils to explore scientific vocabulary and concepts throughout every unit of work.

Scientists

Our science curriculum introduces our pupils to scientists from a diverse range of  backgrounds and from different areas of science. We believe that both famous scientists and everyday scientists can help motivate our children to interact with the world around them, which is why we use up-to-date resources such as 'A Scientist Just Like Me' to inspire our pupils.  Our children are introduced to the life and work of Charles Darwin as a scientist who was local to Dartford. Each year group studies a different element of Charles Darwin's life and work; this allows our children to study him in depth over the period of their time with us.  We believe our pupils will benefit greatly from being exposed to real-life examples of working scientists and our aim is to adapt these lists to meet the needs of our school community as necessary.  We also celebrate scientists during whole school collective worship and encourage pupils to research them as a part of their home learning.