Intent

At Goldfield Infant School we believe that science is inclusive and fosters curiosity in all children. We want children to experience and observe the natural world around them and give them broad opportunities to question, explore and enquire to develop their knowledge and understanding. Our science curriculum is intended to be as practical as possible, to give children exciting experiences that they will remember, helping them to apply their knowledge as they progress through the school. We encourage the children to be involved as fully as possible in their learning, share their understanding, and extend this whenever possible through cross-curricular links and lively discussions. The children have opportunities to develop their scientific skills and ideas by investigating their own questions. They observe changes over a period of time, notice patterns, make predictions using what they know, make links as well as grouping and classifying things. Scientific enquiry underpins our aim to challenge our young children’s ideas and encourages them to think scientifically. We aim to develop our young children into considerate young people and teach them about the impact that science has on our environment and the importance of being aware of this for the future.

Implementation

We teach the science scheme of work which consists of the scientific areas of learning (e.g. animals, plants, materials). This is taught through a sequence of lessons for each topic and we ensure progression of skills is evident over Year R, Year 1 and Year 2. We also study seasonal change over a year long period, where children closely observe the changes that happen over time. We take a child-centred approach using prior knowledge of the children and have a clearly defined end point, at the end of lesson or topic. We want the children to acquire skills and knowledge in a logical way in which they get embedded in long term memory to be applied in the wider curriculum. Opportunities are taken whenever possible to learn outside; we are lucky to have developed a nature area where the children can explore, observe carefully, collect data and share with others their findings. We have allotment areas where the children can grow, look after plants and vegetables and become fully immersed.

Impact

At Goldfield we;

• Assess the children at the end of each topic to ensure a depth of understanding and knowledge of the scientific concept taught. In each lesson the adults will be continually assessing each child’s progress to ensure misconceptions are identified and resolved within the lesson.
• Pupil voice – are children happy, engaged, motivated to do well, challenged?
• Learning walks - do they show evidence of our intent in action?
• Planning – is it allowing children to gain knowledge and master scientific concepts, does it meet the needs of all learners? Is their evidence that the children are working scientifically and progression across the key stage?
• Books – is presentation of a high standard and are all children making at least expected progress from their various starting points?
• Data – is attainment and progress at least in line with National averages, do all groups achieve as well as they should? What provisions are in place to support children who aren’t making progress?
• Learning environment – is it rich in language to support children’s learning, does it support independence?