Birchen Coppice Primary Academy

Intent

We acknowledge the significance of the Science curriculum and strive to uphold a high profile of the subject in our school. Our goal is to foster curiosity in children, inspiring them to ask questions that ignite enthusiasm to explore and investigate the world in which we live in. Through offering engaging and challenging experiences, we aim to help our children in broadening their scientific understanding, vocabulary and critical thinking skills.

Implementation

Science will be taught weekly by their class teacher. Key Stage 1 will teach Science for 1 hour and KS2 will teach Science for a minimum of 1.5 hours each week.

The Science Overview 23-24 document explicitly shows teachers which strands are taught for each year group throughout the academic year. This supports their understanding of the children’s prior knowledge within a strand across the Science curriculum.

To support teachers’ subject knowledge, when delivering Science lessons, Cornerstones will be available as a starting point for planning. Alongside this, teachers will use a Science progression map to identify the objectives needed to be taught for their year group for each strand.

The Science progression map also supports differentiation as it highlights the previous year group(s) objectives for each Science unit. To ensure that teachers build on children’s prior knowledge, they will assess their children on the previous year group(s) objectives before teaching a new unit of Science. The outcomes of these assessments will inform future planning so that progress can be made.

Impact

The impact of Science is monitored closely by class teachers and the Science Leader.

Teachers regularly review the outcomes of their Science lessons and this is captured on the Science progression map. Teachers will reteach objectives and address any misconceptions where necessary. The progression map builds on existing knowledge and when used effectively this will enable children to become secure in Science. Teachers understand the importance of the progression map and how each review will inform future teachers on our children’s progress in Science.

Pupil voice will be carried out by the Science Leader to identify what children can remember about a specific unit of Science that has already been taught previously. It is important that children know and remember more about Science and this form of monitoring will clearly identify this.