Vision

The science curriculum at New Haw will inspire children to develop an inquisitiveness, fascination and understanding of the world in which they live as, at its heart, science seeks to explain the material world.  Through exploration and investigation, all children will thrive from a high quality science education. Knowledge of complex scientific ideas will be developed over many years through a carefully sequenced curriculum that identifies what pupils need to know and retain.  To understand science, pupils will learn how knowledge becomes established and revised through low-stakes testing and recap of key scientific concepts.  This will involve pupils carrying out high quality, meaningful and well-selected practical tasks which are carefully connected to the theoretical work and focusses pupil’s attention to the content that we want them to learn and recall.  As well as this, children will be explicitly taught the procedures and concepts that underpin scientific enquiry to enable them to work scientifically.  Our curriculum looks at how a science education can develop all of this knowledge for all pupils. Pupils will build, remember and connect together a rich body of knowledge rooted in an authentic understanding of what science is and are able to distinguish the difference between each scientific discipline.

Our vision is to deliver a curriculum that enables children to understand how science can be used to explain what is occurring and why in the world around them.  We will foster a sense of excitement and curiosity which stimulates scientific questioning through appropriate challenge in a subject that is learning driven rather than activity led. Children will have an awareness of the dynamic nature of science and its huge importance and relevance in everyday life.  Understanding the impact of past and present scientists will inspire our pupils to be the scientists of the future.  Ultimately, our children will feel empowered to explore and investigate areas of their own interest both within and beyond the curriculum.

Curriculum Design

Curriculum Map

 

Rationale

The science curriculum at New Haw follows the content and progression set out by the National Curriculum. Key knowledge and understanding of the natural sciences and how they impact upon humanity are built upon in each year group through carefully constructed subject content. Throughout key stage 2, children explore content that moves from those that are more concrete (in Year 3 and 4) to abstract (in Year 5 and 6).   

At New Haw, lesson planning recognises the importance of building upon children’s prior knowledge as they need to develop secure foundations of a concept before being able to apply this across other domains. Therefore, there is a strong focus on ensuring that pupils build both substantive and disciplinary knowledge throughout each unit. For example, children must understand what each component is and its role in an electrical circuit before they can investigate how manipulating them can impact the function of a circuit as a whole.   

Scientific enquiry skills have been carefully structured across our curriculum to ensure children progress as scientists. These skills are explicitly taught and include: asking relevant questions, carrying out a fair test, collecting and analysing data, reporting on findings and establishing conclusions. In lower school, children are introduced to these skills at a simpler level which are modelled thoroughly by teachers and heavily scaffolded. Moving into upper school, children begin to become more independent constructing investigations for a posed question whilst teachers use questioning and prompts to support and enhance their enquiry. For example, in Year 3 children begin to write simple predictions which progresses to Year 6 children making predictions based on sound scientific understanding and reasoning whilst also making further predictions based on previous findings. 

At New Haw we recognise that science in our world is constantly updating and developing. As a result, this ethos is maintained and interwoven throughout all the science units across the school