Stansfield Hall Church of England | Methodist Church Primary School

Our carefully designed science curriculum is intended to spark our pupils’ curiosity in the world around them and help them develop skills in science as a process of enquiry. We have personalised the science curriculum to the children that attend Stansfield Hall Church of England / Methodist Church Primary School and created inbuilt opportunities within the curriculum to increase our children’s understanding of possible career options opened up by an interest and understanding of science. By the time children leave Stansfield Hall, they should be equipped with the scientific knowledge outlined in the National Curriculum, have a deep understanding of what it means to work scientifically and be able to communicate their findings across a range of different methods including ICT, graphs and charts.

At Stansfield Hall, we break our learning down into phases - Explorers, Discoverers and Pioneers - and each of these phases has set milestones which we expect our children to achieve. Each unit of science at Stansfield Hall always contains a clear progression of knowledge across the course of the phase and all working scientifically skills will be covered by the end of each milestone.

In EYFS, science is included within the Understanding the World area of learning. As with other learning in Reception, our children learn about science through focused leaning activities directed by a member of staff. They experience the world around them through observing the weather and the seasons, looking at and questioning things in the curiosity cube as well as experimenting with a range of different resources in the Investigation area. Other areas in the classroom also enable them to engage in experimentation including the sand and water area, construction den as well as the texture kitchen in the outside garden. Practitioners ask questions and identify resources which gain children’s interest and use scientific language to support children’s development of Scientific vocabulary as well as developing important skills including observation, prediction and critical thinking.

In Milestone 1 our year 1 children experience and observe phenomena, looking more closely at the natural and humanly constructed world around them. They are encouraged to be curious and ask questions about what they notice. They are helped to develop their understanding of scientific ideas by using different types of scientific enquiry to answer their own questions, including observing changes over a period of time, noticing patterns, grouping and classifying things, carrying out simple comparative tests, and finding things out using secondary sources of information. Our children begin to use simple scientific language to talk about what they have found out and communicate their ideas to a range of audiences in a variety of ways. Lots of the learning in science is done through the use of first-hand practical experiences, but there is also use of appropriate secondary sources, such as books, photographs and videos.

Our year 2 and 3 children, in Milestone 2, broaden their scientific view of the world around them. They do this through exploring, talking about, testing and developing ideas about everyday phenomena and the relationships between living things and familiar environments, and by beginning to develop their ideas about functions, relationships and interactions. They ask their own questions about what they observe and make some decisions about which types of scientific enquiry are likely to be the best ways of answering them, including observing changes over time, noticing patterns, grouping and classifying things, carrying out simple comparative and fair tests and finding things out using secondary sources of information. They draw simple conclusions and use some scientific language, first, to talk about and, later, to write about what they have found out.

Milestone 3 enables our year 4, 5 and 6 children to develop a deeper understanding of a wide range of scientific ideas. They do this through exploring and talking about their ideas; asking their own questions about scientific phenomena; and analysing functions, relationships and interactions more systematically. They are exposed to more abstract ideas and begin to recognise how these ideas help them to understand and predict how the world operates. They also begin to recognise that scientific ideas change and develop over time. They should select the most appropriate ways to answer science questions using different types of scientific enquiry, including observing changes over different periods of time, noticing patterns, grouping and classifying things, carrying out comparative and fair tests and finding things out using a wide range of secondary sources of information. Our children draw conclusions based on their data and observations, use evidence to justify their ideas, and use their scientific knowledge and understanding to explain their findings

Each lesson includes a knowledge learning objective and a working scientifically objective which will be unpicked at the beginning of each lesson. Many of our lessons will feature a hands-on science experiment to consolidate the learning objective of the lesson and to ensure all children are actively engaged.

We adapt our lessons carefully for our children with SEND to ensure that all children can access their learning. At the end of each unit, children’s understanding of the unit is assessed to ensure that children are constantly moved forward with their learning. In all lessons, key scientific vocabulary is embedded and children are actively encouraged to use it in their spoken language and written work. Across the phases, children will have access to either a trip or a experience directly related to their science unit in order to increase their understanding that science is vital in our day to day lives.

Above all, perhaps most fundamentally, we want our children to leave Stansfield Hall Church or England / Methodist Church Primary School with a passion for and enjoyment of science.

Explorers