Science

Science is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.

Jules Verne, French Novelist

An introduction from our Science Leader - Mr Allen

Science

The Intent, Implementation and Impact of our Curriculum – Science.

Longlands Primary School understands the need for all pupils to develop their Scientific ability as an essential component of all subjects and as a subject in its own right. A good understanding of scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding helps to support pupils work across the curriculum.

Intent

At Longlands Primary School we believe that a high quality science education provides the foundations for understanding the world through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics. Throughout history, Science has changed our lives and had a profound impact on the world around us. Science is vital to the world’s future prosperity, and all pupils should be taught essential aspects of scientific knowledge, methods, processes and their uses. Through building up a body of key foundational knowledge and skills, pupils should be encouraged to recognise the power of rational explanation and develop a sense of excitement and curiosity about natural phenomena. They should be encouraged to understand how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave and analyse cause and effect.

Implementation

Our approach to science encompasses the study of specific scientific concepts through the current text used via our Power of Reading scheme in English and targeted, enquiry-led approaches. What this means in practice is that – where appropriate to do so – the teaching and learning of Science is informed by the children’s over-arching class text, linked to specific areas of Geography or History. However, some areas of science are also explored in detail without a specific cross-curricular focus. Where this is the case, the children are posed thematic questions by Mr. Allen (as our Science Lead) to investigate using the full-range of skills required to work scientifically.

Science in our school is about developing children’s ideas and ways of working that enable them to make sense of the world in which they live through investigation, as well as using and applying process skills. The staff at Longlands ensure that all children are exposed to high quality teaching and learning experiences, which allow children to explore their outdoor environment and locality, thus developing their scientific enquiry and investigative skills. They are immersed in scientific vocabulary, which aids children’s knowledge and understanding not only of the topic they are studying, but of the world around them. We intend to provide all children regardless of ethnic origin, gender, class, aptitude or disability, with a broad and balanced science curriculum. Children are encouraged to think about termly ‘Big Science Questions’ and present findings in imaginative ways.

Teachers plan to suit their children’s interests, current events, their own teaching style, the use of any support staff and the resources available. Children are assessed pre and post topic and this helps to inform teacher assessment on a termly basis.

We ensure that all children are provided with rich learning experiences that aim to:

Prepare our children for life in an increasingly scientific and technological world today and in the future.
Help our children acquire a growing understanding of the nature, processes and methods of scientific ideas.
Help develop and extend our children’s scientific concept of their world.
Build on our children’s natural curiosity and developing a scientific approach to problems.
Encouraging open-mindedness, self-assessment, perseverance and developing the skills of investigation – including: observing, measuring, predicting, hypothesising, experimenting, communicating, interpreting, explaining and evaluating.
Develop the use of scientific language, recording and techniques.
Make links between science and other subjects.

Impact

The impact and measure of this is to ensure children not only acquire the appropriate age related knowledge linked to the science curriculum, but also skills which equip them to progress from their starting points, and within their everyday lives. We will measure this impact via pre and post topic tests, teacher assessment, book looks and lesson observations.

All children will have:

A wider variety of skills linked to both scientific knowledge and understanding, and scientific enquiry/investigative skills.

A richer vocabulary which will enable to articulate their understanding of taught concepts.

High aspirations, which will see them through to further study, work and a successful adult life.

During Science week the children worked with other year group partners to build bridges in teams. Here you can see a year 6 class working with a Reception class. The children shared ideas and worked together so well.

Here are some quotes from the children:

"We're making stilts on the bottom of the bridge to hold it up. The platform is strong too so more bears can fit on top!"

"Our idea is like a suspension bridge, we will have bits to hold it up and make it strong."

“We made 1 main bridge with 1 main support, like an underground bridge”.

"We made legs – 21 cm – we folded up paper inside paper inside paper. We fitted 5 bears on, then it collapsed!”

“We rolled our paper really thing and strong, we put strips of tape on it. We made loads of pillars and we had 15 bears but we had too much tape so it started to fall.”

“We taped it to the table to make it stronger. We had 23 bears!”

“We built the main bit of the bridge by layering the paper. We had 8 bears.”

"This is The Leaning Tower of Bears! We built 4 pillars but that started to tip, we built more but that started to tip! We had 22 bears before it tipped!”

The Big Science Question

Every term a new science question is posed to the children. The question is designed to make them think and does not have one straightforward answer that could be found with a quick internet search! A selection of the work produced is then displayed on our science board. Have a look below at an example.

Useful websites

Below are links to useful websites to further support your child's learning in science. You will find the relevant topics your child will cover in their key stages as well as games to play linked to these topics.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/z6svr82

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/z2pfb9q