Killingholme Primary School

Our Intent:

At Killingholme Primary, we promote a positive attitude to learning (based on our school vision of Partnerships + Potential + Performance = Success), encouraging our students to aspire to achieve their full potential by providing rich, motivational, purposeful and inspiring learning.

The teaching of Science at Killingholme Primary School aims to encourage inquisitive thinking to enrich children’s curiosity in order to grow a strong understanding of the world around them. Acquiring knowledge and an understanding of scientific processes enables the pupils to make links between Science in the classroom and its implications within today’s world, and importantly, the future. Progression seen within specific scientific topics across the school underpins the pupils’ opportunities for deeper understanding, enabling them to build on prior knowledge. Within an environment inclusive of all, and by creating immersive lessons, children develop scientific knowledge and understanding which is demonstrated by written and verbal explanations, solving challenging problems and reporting scientific findings. Children have opportunities to explore, question and come to balanced conclusions; resulting in pupils who are motivated to discover and ask big questions. Staff across the school understand the importance of investigation and the impact this has on learning. Across the school, Science takes a crucial role in inspiring young minds to think big; fostering a love of learning and a passion for Science in past, present and future technologies.

Our Implementation:

The Science Long Term plan has been developed to suit KS1 and the mixed classes within KS2. We have ensured coverage and progression across the whole school. When planning, teachers pay particular attention to the ‘Working Scientifically’ elements of the curriculum as this is absolutely key in providing pupils with opportunities to:

· Ask questions and plan enquiries

· Set up enquiries

· Observe and measure

· Record

· Interpret and Report

· Evaluate

Through our planning, we involve problem-solving opportunities that allow children to find out for themselves. Children are encouraged to ask their own questions and are given opportunities to use their scientific skills and research to discover the answers. Planning involves teachers creating engaging lessons, often involving high-quality resources to aid understanding of conceptual knowledge. Teachers use precise questioning in class to test conceptual knowledge and skills, and assess children regularly to identify those children with gaps in learning, so that all children keep up.

At Killingholme Primary, we build upon the learning and skill development of the previous years. As the children’s knowledge and understanding increases, and they become more proficient in selecting, using scientific equipment, collating and interpreting results, they become increasingly confident in their growing ability to come to conclusions based on real evidence. Teachers demonstrate how to use scientific equipment, and the various Working Scientifically skills in order to embed scientific understanding. Teachers find opportunities to develop children’s understanding of their surroundings by accessing outdoor learning and through external visits.

At the beginning of each unit, children create a concept map, where they are able to write down any knowledge they currently know about the topic ahead. They then add and build upon this each week at the end of a lesson in green pen. This creates a working document, which the children have ownership of, to show the knowledge which has been learnt throughout the term. At the end of the unit, children are given an exit task to measure the progress. In addition to this, at the beginning of each lesson, a retrieval practise activity is given to the children about the previous weeks' learning to bring the knowledge back to the forefront. This is known to the children as ‘It’s Nothing New’. We use assessment for learning to ensure all lessons are relevant and will help to plan for next steps.

Child speak skills mats can be found in the front of foundation subject books and these ensure children not only know what they are learning, but also the skills they are learning to be a scientist. 

Subject co-ordinators are given regular time to ensure resources are kept up to date, to monitor subjects across the school, create action plans and provide subject feedback to SLT as appropriate. Subject leads once a term will also generate a standards report, based on the teacher's assessment of students over the term. This will inform their next steps in their subject.

The Impact:

The successful approach to the teaching of science at Killingholme Primary will result in a fun, engaging, high quality science education, that provides children with the foundations for understanding the world that they can take with them once they complete their primary education. By the end of Key Stage Two, all children will have developed scientific enquiry skills in the five key areas: Observing changes over time, noticing patterns, grouping and classifying things, finding things out through secondary sources of information and modelling. We want children to be immersed in Science to reinforce the skills that they have previously learned, but then want to build on them by challenging their thinking further.

All children will have:

• A wider variety of skills linked to both scientific knowledge and understanding, and scientific enquiry/investigative skills
• A rich vocabulary, which will enable them to articulate their understanding of taught concepts
• Confidence and a love of learning for all things science