Science

Our science curriculum is based around our core values:  Successful Happy Included Nurtured Enriched and follows the National Curriculum guidance for Early Years, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.

Since science links direct practical experience with ideas, it can engage learners at many levels and enrich their education. Scientific method is about developing and evaluating explanations through experimental evidence and modelling. This is a spur to critical and creative thought. Through science, pupils understand how major scientific ideas contribute to technological change – it can explain how science affects industry, business, medicine and improving the quality of life. Children learn to question and discuss science-based issues that may affect their own lives, the direction of society and the future of the world.

We aim for every child to:

• Increase children’s motivation, enthusiasm and engagement in their learning by making learning meaningful through putting it into a context,
• Support the raising of standards in both teaching and learning
• Help children to become more independent and take greater ownership of their learning, developing their confidence and motivation to learn through the use of a range of teaching and learning styles,
• Establish strong cross curricular links to ensure a broader understanding,
• Create and maintain an exciting and stimulating learning environment,
• Provide opportunities to apply knowledge and learning in practical ways and to solve
• problems in a variety of situations,
• Provide enrichment opportunities where learning and teaching can take place beyond the classroom,

In Focus Provision children will have the opportunity to:

• Engage in activities to develop skills linked to personal targets.
• Use science to support the children’s PSHE skills, providing them with opportunities to express themselves and produce pieces of work that are unique to them. (Develop life skills).
• Fully immerse themselves into all aspects of the curriculum in an engaging, motivating way which is purposeful to the learners.
• Engage in sensory based science and media opportunities to enable the children to develop awareness of their senses and using their experiences to form conclusions in line with their Life Skills curriculum
• Engage in sensory based science lessons which provides the children with opportunities to self regulate.
• Explore and develop their communication skills through science
• Develop their skills using a variety of scientific equipment

In EYFS children will have the opportunity to:

• Explore science content through the ‘Understanding of the World’ strand of the EYFS curriculum.
• to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment.
• observe and manipulate objects and materials to identify  differences and similarities whilst asking questions and communicating their thoughts.

In Key Stage 1 and 2 children will have the opportunity to:

• ask and answer scientific questions
• plan and carry out scientific investigations, using equipment, including computers, correctly;
• know and understand the life processes of living things;
• know and understand the physical processes of materials, electricity, light, sound and natural forces;
• know about the nature of the solar system, including the earth;
• evaluate evidence and present their conclusions clearly and accurately

With an understanding of science children can begin to comprehend and explain the world around them. Science stimulates, excites and satisfies pupil’s curiosity about phenomena and events in the world and can lead them to a path of life-long learning.