Science Curriculum
Called to Change
At Sacred Heart Catholic Primary and Nursery School, Christ is at the centre of everything we do. We base our curriculum on a ‘Called to Change’ theme. We want our pupils to have an amazing future as an active and caring member of society. We focus on improving life skills and giving children opportunities where they can thrive and achieve.
Our science curriculum provides children with a variety of rich opportunities to explore the world around us. We encourage children to be inquisitive, thoughtful individuals who, throughout their time at our school, develop a sense of awe and wonder about the world we live in. We focus on developing their vocabulary, spoken language and enquiry skills to inspire and enhance learning.
Intent
Our intent is to teach a rich, balanced, progressive curriculum using science to develop understanding and scientific enquiry skills.
All children, including the most disadvantaged pupils, the most-able pupils and pupils with SEND receive the same challenge within the same broad curriculum.
Children will be challenged irrespective of their ability and starting points. Children will have opportunities to develop their learning further.
All children in school will develop a range of scientific vocabulary that they can transfer to other areas of learning.
Long-term planning ensures that lessons build on knowledge, skills and understanding from previous lessons and prior learning in earlier year groups. These scientific skills are built on in each year group.
Implementation
Planning for all science lessons is done using Rising Stars: Switched onto Science. We have worked together to adapt this to suit the needs of our children and, where appropriate, link to our key theme of ‘Called to Change’. This ensures that knowledge, skills and understanding is developed throughout the year and the Key Stage. Planning is sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before and towards defined end points.
All lessons contain different levels of challenge linked to the learning objective and all children access an age appropriate curriculum. IT ensures all children can succeed in tasks by responding in a variety of ways.
Teachers focus on scientific vocabulary within lessons and planning and have appropriate vocabulary displayed around the classroom.
A range of approaches and manipulatives are used, when needed to develop understanding throughout the school. Pupils engage in: practical work, written work, investigational work, reasoning and developing scientific language.
Impact
All children of all abilities achieve in lessons. The most disadvantaged children and children with SEND are given the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life.
All children are taught a broad, rich curriculum and achieve success in assessments. The impact of this is that children will understand more and be able to achieve ARE. Children will also be able to apply their scientific enquiry and investigation skills and vocabulary to solve a range of problems.
Assessment
To assess science, all children complete end of unit assessments. Teachers use the scores from these to assess whether children are working towards, meeting age related standards and working at greater depth. The children that are not meeting age related expectations will then get further support moving forward in order to try and fill any gaps in learning.
Year 7 – Life After Sacred Heart
We are part of the Mater Christi Trust and work closely with the Secondary schools in our family. We want to ensure that our children have a successful and positive transition between Key Stage 2 and 3 and are prepared for their adult life as well.
We ensure that the children learn a wide range of scientific skills, focused on biology, chemistry and physics that will serve them well in Key Stage 3.
We focus on their Oracy skills through practical investigations and enquiries to ensure they have the vocabulary to explain their thoughts. This also boosts their confidence and communication skills which will help them when meeting new pupils in Year 7.
Their time at Primary school, ensures that they are fluent in and have mastered the knowledge and skills needed for the Key Stage 2 curriculum and are ready for accessing the Key Stage 3 curriculum in depth.
