Science

Intent:

At Wansdyke, it is our aim that children leave the school with a good understanding of the world around us.  We hope to inspire the next generation of scientists and instil them with excellent scientific knowledge and skills that they can use in these rapidly changing times. We aim to stimulate the children’s curiosity through practical experiments and help them to ask questions that challenge the status quo. We hope to create a culture within science that exudes excitement and allows for discovery and exploration. However, at the same time we want to ensure that key scientific principles are taught rigorously and consistently thus providing the building blocks for future learning. We have high expectations for all our children at Wansdyke School and we want to develop well-rounded, morally aware pupils.  

Implementation:

 The school has created its own ‘Science Overviews’ that are mapped out from Year 1 to Year 6. The purpose of the overviews is to create a progressive sequence of scientific knowledge, skills and vocabulary. These have been created to closely follow the key book for the term, so cross-curricular links are strong and clear. The 2014 National Curriculum objectives and scientific skills have been specifically chosen for each term and these sit alongside a scientific experiment. The careful design of these overviews gives the teacher a good structure from which to plan a six-week lesson block.    

To support the overviews, ‘Knowledge Booklets’ are currently being created for pupils to showcase their learning. These are being meticulously planned to develop a well-sequenced learning journey. Key information and vocabulary is outlined in the ‘knowledge organiser’ page at the front and this culminates in an experiment to apply skills and knowledge. Within each booklet there are many opportunities to dive deeper including a moral question, which promotes higher order thinking. We believe it is important to for children to be historically aware and have thus created a scientific timeline to help children to see the bigger picture. Opportunities for returning to, and expanding on prior knowledge is built into the booklets as this is crucial for developing schema and long term retention.

These booklets are currently being created across the different strands of Science and will display the growing knowledge of pupils as they progress through Wansdyke School. 

Impact:

We expect our Science curriculum to be rich, thorough and practical.  At Wansdyke School, we want pupils to be infused with important knowledge, key scientific skills and the opportunities to practically apply these. Creating the Science Overviews was the first step in the journey and we are now ‘adding the flesh to the bones’ through the booklets, as we look to achieve the vision set out in our intent statement.