Our school vision

"This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118 

 

Our curriculum vision  for Science 

Intent

At Finchampstead School, through a variety of practical and investigative science activities, children are introduced to the three main areas of Science; biology, chemistry and physics. However, the real aim of our science curriculum is to nurture children’s natural curiosity and excitement of the world around them through stimuli and investigations to enable them to question (arguably the most important skill in science) discover, observe and solve problems within a creative science curriculum. They are encouraged to understand how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave, and analyse causes. We want children to see how science has changed our lives and is vital to the world’s future prosperity, and all pupils should be taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science.

We want children to be exposed to high quality teaching and learning experiences, which allow children to explore their outdoor environment and locality, thus developing their scientific enquiry and investigative skills. Our beautiful school grounds and surrounding area provide a rich resource for many investigations involving habitats and the growth of plants, encouraging our children to take care of the world around us. We emphasise the importance of asking questions through practical work and collaborative learning to develop skills of scientific enquiry. Broadening their scientific vocabulary is key so they can articulate their findings and have the language needed to explain what they have discovered.

Implementation

In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in science, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. Planning for science is a process in which all teachers are involved to ensure that the school gives full coverage of, ‘The National Curriculum programmes of study for Science. Where possible, Science is linked to class topics but science can be taught as discrete units and lessons where needed to ensure coverage. Due to half form year groups in our school, Science units are taught on a two tear year rolling programme. This ensures progression between year groups and guarantees topics are covered. Teachers plan to suit their children’s interests, current events, their own teaching style, the use of any support staff and the resources available.

We ensure that all children are provided with rich learning experiences that aim to:

• Prepare our children for life in an increasingly scientific and technological world today and in the future.
• Help our children acquire a growing understanding of the nature, processes and methods of scientific ideas.
• Help develop and extend our children’s scientific concept of their world.
• Build on our children’s natural curiosity and developing a scientific approach to problems.
• Encouraging open-mindedness, self-assessment, perseverance and developing the skills of  investigation – including observing, measuring, predicting, hypothesising, experimenting, communicating, interpreting, explaining and evaluating.
• Develop the use of scientific language, recording and techniques.
• Develop the use of computing in investigating and recording.
• Make links between science and other subjects.

Science is taught consistently, weekly for up to two hours by the end of KS2, but is discretely taught in many different contexts throughout all areas of the curriculum. For example, through English, i.e. writing an explanation of pollination / biography of a Mary Anning, etc. In maths, data collected can be presented as line graphs or tables.

 

Impact

The impact and measure of this is to ensure children not only acquire the appropriate age related knowledge linked to the science curriculum, but also skills which equip them to progress from their starting points, and within their everyday lives.

All children will have:

• A wider variety of skills linked to both scientific knowledge and understanding, and scientific enquiry/investigative skills.
• A richer vocabulary which will enable them to articulate their understanding of taught concepts.
• High aspirations, which will see them through to further study, work and a successful adult life.