Science

Science Leader: Laura Love

“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” Albert Einstein

At Christ Church Junior School, it is our aim that all children find enjoyment and thrive when exploring new concepts and enquiring about the world around them. Our science lessons are engaging, responsive and practical, allowing children to learn through direct interaction with their environment, and grow in both confidence and independence. Our science curriculum gives all children small building blocks which are mapped out by the subject leader and planned in greater detail by class teachers to enable all children to make progress. Both scientific skills and types of enquiry form threads throughout our science curriculum in both Lower and Upper Band, providing structure, consistency and ensuring coverage of skills as a vehicle through which to acquire new knowledge.  It is our aim that children leave our school with a deeper understanding of scientific concepts and secure scientific knowledge within their long-term memory, therefore new learning is taught in a carefully planned sequence and previous learning is revised before each next step. Furthermore, it is our aim to foster curiosity, and to explicitly teach the vocabulary needed, for our children, as scientific thinkers, to grow in confidence with asking pertinent, relevant questions and knowing how to go about suggesting lines of enquiry that may find answers, or unveil further questions.

How we teach science

Our science lessons are delivered on a two-year rolling cycle and objectives are carefully mapped out to ensure that knowledge and skills build upon what the children have previously covered in science.

Every science lesson at CCJ has a practical element, for example using rounders posts to explore the movement of shadows or creating a scaled model of the solar system. This helps children to develop knowledge in an engaging and purposeful context. All children have a chance to discuss, share and present findings at the end of the lesson.  Each class has an interactive science display, which reflects the children's learning journey and displays key scientific vocabulary as well as examples of pupils' learning and thinking.

Assessment

Each term, children complete an activity from the TAPS programme, that focuses on the assessment of working scientifically skills. The children also complete a short quiz called a 'hot task' to check their understanding of the knowledge and skills that have been taught in the unit. Teachers use this, alongside work in children's books to identify which children have a secure understanding of the scientific knowledge that has been taught.

Curriculum overview