Rationale

At Jericho Primary School, we are scientists! We want our children to love science, know more, and remember more. We want them to have no limits to their ambitions and grow up wanting to be astronauts, forensic scientists, nuclear scientists, nurses, or doctors. We want our core values to be represented in our children: nurture, achievement, adventure, respect, and creativity, and these are embedded within our learning sequences. We believe that: “we are growing the hearts and minds of today to build the communities of tomorrow” and the ambition of our children embodies this ideal. The science curriculum has therefore been carefully crafted to ensure our children develop their knowledge, skills, and experience of science-related careers with the aspiration that many will pursue a career in science. We want our children to remember their science learning in our school, to cherish and build upon these memories and embrace the scientific opportunities they are presented with. In order to achieve this:

• Our science curriculum promotes curiosity and a thirst for learning. It empowers our children to become independent and resilient – like all curriculum areas.
• Our inspiring, ambitious, high quality science curriculum provides the foundations for understanding our world through a scientific knowledge within and conceptual understanding of the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics.
• We want to equip our children with not only the minimum statutory requirements of the science National Curriculum but to prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. Science is especially crucial to the prosperity of our own local, national, and global community. Science is vital to our local economy and has changed, and continues to change, our lives forever.  In building the communities of tomorrow, our skillful teaching and learning in Science plays a key role in ensuring our success.
• All pupils should be inspired and challenged to develop an understanding and achieve their best in the essential aspects of the nature, knowledge, methods, processes, implications and uses of science both today and in the future.
• Through innovative and creative teaching and learning, where all children are nurtured, known well, and encouraged in their interests and passions by their teachers, pupils will grow and develop a sense of adventure, excitement and curiosity about natural phenomena. They should be encouraged to recognise the power of rational explanation developed through the use of precise vocabulary. They will do this by building up a body of key foundational knowledge and concepts which they have developed over time.
• They should be encouraged to make connections across their learning in order to understand and remember how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave, and analyse causes.
• Through a range of scientific enquiries, children will be able to answer scientific questions about the world around them.
• With our core values placed at the heart of everything we do, we want our children to use the natural diversity and cultural vibrancy of our great town and county to learn to become global citizens. Through their carefully crafted science learning, scientific enquiries, educational visits, enrichment opportunities, and science capital links, our children will learn about what being a ‘scientist’ means and how that is imperative to them as global citizens who embrace the world around them. We firmly believe that it is not just about what happens in the classroom, it is about the added value we offer to really inspire our children.

Curriculum Intentions

Science, by nature, is a subject rich in knowledge, which can transform a pupil’s understanding of their own place in the world and helps them to appreciate everyday phenomena.  It is our intention that pupils undergo a journey from novice to expert as they progress through the curriculum, accumulating and connecting substantive and disciplinary scientific knowledge within the disciplines of biology, chemistry, and physics. Our children will be given opportunities to learn about common inter-disciplinary concepts as they develop as scientists over time.

Substantive Knowledge is the scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding of the products of science organised according to the three subject disciplines, such as concepts, laws, theories, models. Pupils know the science. Practical work is part of this and helps our children to learn substantive knowledge; this interconnects substantive and disciplinary knowledge. At Jericho, we identify the three subject disciplines and their ‘Big Ideas’.

Biology

• Organisms are organised on a cellular basis.
• Organisms require a supply of energy and materials for which they are often dependent on or in competition with other organisms.
• Genetic information is passed down from one generation of organisms to another.
• The diversity of organisms, living and extinct, is the result of evolution.

Chemistry

• All material in the Universe is made of very small particles.
• The total amount of energy in the Universe is always the same but energy can be transformed when things change or are made to happen.
• The composition of the Earth and its atmosphere and the processes occurring within them shape the Earth’s surface and its climate.

Physics

• Objects can affect other objects at a distance.
• Changing the movement of an object requires a net force to be acting on it.
• The total amount of energy in the Universe is always the same but energy can be transformed when things change or are made to happen.
• The solar system is a very small part of one of millions of galaxies in the Universe.

Disciplinary Knowledge will enable pupils to understand the connections between ideas, and develop the skills to consider how knowledge is established, is generated and grows.  This is our ‘working scientifically’ part of our learning sequences and incorporates four content areas: methods to answer questions; apparatus and techniques; data analysis; and how science uses evidence to develop explanations. Pupils therefore know the evidence for the science. Science disciplinary knowledge is embedded within the substantive content of our learning sequences.

Our curriculum will:

Build upon prior learning: For example, in the EYFS, pupils learn about the features of their own immediate environment and how environments might vary from one another. This is revisited in Year 1 as children begin to study plants, parts of plants, and trees in more depth.  This makes it easier to cognitively process. Children revisit this as they move on to learn about habitats, germination, productive parts of plants, and how to grow them in Year 2.  Later on, in KS2, a more detailed knowledge of the requirements for plants to thrive and reproduce and how to classify living things is gained.  Each unit of work builds on previous learning.

Cumulative Knowledge: Our curriculum is built on the principles of the big ideas of the three subject disciplines as detailed above.  These principles are built one step at a time and revisited over time to ensure that they culminate in our end of unit, year and key stage outcomes.  

Building Substantive Knowledge: Our curriculum equips pupils to become ‘more expert’ with each unit and grow an ever-broadening model of the subject. We have identified clear knowledge that is to be taught for each unit.  This knowledge is carefully sequenced so that each piece of knowledge builds on the previous piece of knowledge so that children become ‘more expert’ in the subject. Golden nuggets of knowledge have been identified clearly in each lesson (and are outlined for teachers on knowledge organisers) so that teachers can easily check whether children know more and remember more.

Scientific Vocabulary: Scientific vocabulary is planned sequentially and cumulatively from Early Years to Y6. High frequency and multiple meaning words (tier 2) are taught and help make sense of subject specific words (tier 3).

Knowledge Retention: Our science curriculum is planned so that the retention of knowledge is much more than just ‘in the moment knowledge’. The cumulative nature of the curriculum is made memorable by the use of a range of  retrieval activities (based on small steps and knowledge organisers), interleaving, and spaced practice that helps children to remember the golden nuggets.

EYFS

In EYFS, children begin their Science learning journey by following the Early Learning Goals:

• Explore the natural world around them, making observations and drawing pictures of animals and plants;
• 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;
• Understand some important processes and changes in the natural world around them, including the seasons and changing states of matter;
• Describe their immediate environment using knowledge from observation, discussion, stories, non-fiction texts and maps; and
• Explain some similarities and differences between life in this country and life in other countries, drawing on knowledge from stories, non-fiction texts and – when appropriate – maps.

These early learning goals have been used as prior knowledge outcomes, and developed in detail on which the KS1 and KS2 curriculum is based .

Key Stage One and Key Stage Two

The Science Long Term Plan  gives an overview of the subjects covered. In every KS1 & KS2 year group science is to be taught weekly for an afternoon or twice weekly lessons, following the LTP of topics, small steps and knowledge organiser for unit planning. Further details of this unit planning can be found in the year group and Science Subject Leader file. These documents give the key learning, key vocabulary and methods of assessment for each unit. TAPS documents and activities are to be completed for each unit, where applicable, to ensure ‘working scientifically’ is covered appropriately in every year group, progressed effectively throughout the school, and assessed according to moderated outcomes.