Intent

At St Clement’s & St John’s Infant Schools, our vision is for every child to have confidence, compassion, creativity and curiosity in all areas of learning, including Science.  In modern times, it is essential that we inspire pupils to develop a love of Science, as well encourage their natural curiosity about the world. We believe every child should have this opportunity and we strive to provide an education that emboldens these values.  

This is achieved by fulfilling the National Curriculum for Science and providing a wide range of opportunities for enquiry and exploration. We aim to provide the foundations for understanding the world in which the children live, by providing a high-quality science education. We aim to ensure that every pupil has a variety of learning opportunities that focus on our school vision. Our science curriculum will provide the children with fundamental skills to develop their scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding, as well as giving the children a sense of compassion for animals and the current climate.  

The aim of teaching Science at our school is: 

•  To develop pupils’ curiosity about the world in which they live; the animals, the climate and the environment, as well as encouraging them to ask questions and make tangible links between what they know and what they want to find out.   
• To allow children to be creative in their scientific approach, by providing opportunities for them to plan their own enquiries or explorations.
• To develop pupils’ confidence in their scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding. We believe that children should be encouraged to use this confidence to draw on information they already understand.  
• To inspire compassion and empathy for the world, the climate and the environment, as well as an understanding of the different ways in which the children can support climate change.  

Implementation

At St Clement’s & St John’s Infant School, the Early Years Framework and the National Curriculum is the core of our Science curriculum.

Our curriculum is designed upon a base of skills and knowledge that we want the children to learn and is taught in a progressive manner throughout the whole school.

To ensure high standards of teaching and learning, teachers plan lessons from this progression document and deliver them through topics, which we select to excite and motivate our children.

Impact

We aim for all children to achieve age related expectations in Science at the end of KS1, which we assess against the Teacher Assessment Framework for Science.  

The outcomes of the teaching of Science across the school can be seen through collections of learning in EYFS and within KS1 Science books.  

We assess Science throughout the year, during different topics. Teachers regularly assess through marking and pupil discussions. This is recorded on a data document, which provides the teacher with information about how to plan future lessons, activities and how to appropriately differentiate. This document follows the children through KS1.