Intent

Twickenham Primary School is a place for outstanding academic excellence. Our school motto 'Be all you can be' is the basis of everything that we do.

We are a school where every child aspires to attain academic achievement to the best of their abilities. We believe all our children will develop a lifelong love of learning through engagement in our exciting and ambitious Science curriculum, taught by excellent teachers.

Our children are the heart of our science curriculum design.  Our curriculum is well sequenced, ambitious, and connected. It recognises individuality and encourages cooperation and community mindedness. The big ideas that sculpt and shape our curriculum prepare children academically, socially, and emotionally for the next steps towards adulthood.

Our science curriculum is broad and balanced, and progressively builds on skills, knowledge and conceptual understanding year on year. Our teaching, assessment and feedback leads to long-term learning and prepares our children for secondary education and beyond.

Our science curriculum is wrapped around our core values of curiosity, cooperation and growth. Through building up a body of key foundational knowledge and concepts, pupils should be encouraged to recognise the power of rational explanation and develop a sense of excitement and curiosity about natural phenomena.

Our synchronised curriculum links with other subjects and to scientific learning in other year groups. Joint concepts that link across year groups are displayed on the poster below. 

Working scientifically

The aim of our science projects is to inspire children’s curiosity and fascination about the natural world through observation and experiment. We aim to ignite a love of learning and equip children with the scientific skills to develop their knowledge through observing, communicating, classifying, inferring, measuring, and predicting.

Our lessons focus on the skills of working scientifically, our pupils should be taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes, and uses of science. They promote an awareness of how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave, and analyse causes. 

In their development of scientific behaviour, we support our children’s understanding of scientific methods which involve meticulous observation; the making and testing of hypotheses; understanding how to follow different methods of scientific enquiry which include fair testing, pattern seeking, observation over time, research and classification; the drawing of meaningful conclusions through critical reasoning and the evaluation of evidence.

Scientific development in children involves the use of a wide and increasingly scientific vocabulary. We provide opportunities to promote communication, dialogue, and reflection. Children are immersed in scientific vocabulary, which aids children’s knowledge and understanding not only of the topic they are studying, but of the world around them. Scientific vocabulary is taught and built upon as topics are revisited in different year groups and across different key stages. 

Implementation

As a school, we use the National Curriculum as a starting point, and deepen further using adapted Science projects from Cornerstones Curriculum Maestro. Projects are flexible and have been adapted to consider the needs, strengths, and community context of our children.

Our science curriculum framework ensures our children make progress. Our design scaffolds specific skills within cross-curricular projects each term. This is achieved through a 4-step process of: Engage, Develop, Innovate, Express. This process offers a distinctive learning journey, which builds upon prior knowledge and understanding. At the end of the project, the children participate in opportunities to reflect on their learning and explain key information they have learnt and remembered. The children can connect key concepts across subjects and develop skills and understanding they need for subsequent learning.

Our science projects are sequenced to develop both children’s substantive and declarative knowledge, and if possible, make meaningful links to other projects.  For example, in Year 3, the projects Plants and Light are taught alongside the design and technology project Greenhouse and the art and design project Beautiful Botanicals. These links allow for children to embed their substantive knowledge in new and often real-life contexts. 

The sequencing of projects ensures that children have the substantive knowledge and vocabulary to comprehend subsequent projects fully. Each project’s place in the year has also been carefully considered. For example, projects that involve growing plants or observing animals are positioned at a suitable time of year to give children the best possible opportunity to make first-hand observations. Within all the science projects, disciplinary knowledge is embedded within substantive content.

Teachers create a positive attitude to science learning within their classrooms and reinforce an expectation that all children can achieve high standards in science. They have strong subject knowledge that includes modelling key vocabulary throughout lessons to enable our children to be familiar with and use vocabulary accurately. 

Discrete science lessons take place weekly - although teachers have the scope to block lessons if they require to follow lines of scientific enquiry that connect to cross curricular learning. Science takes place in all classes for the equivalent of at least 1 hour a week. In some geography driven topics, there will be extra elements of science linked to project work. For example, in year 5 children learn about plant and animal life cycles in ‘Sow, Grow and Farm’.

Children have a strong understanding of what science is. We have a clear school-wide definition:

• Science is the study of the natural world.

• Science helps me make sense of the natural world through observation and experiment.

• Science involves the skills of observing, communicating, classifying, inferring, measuring and predicting.

In each lesson, this definition is revisited. Children discuss the aims of the lesson and can revisit previous knowledge during our “fluent in 5” rewind activity. They discuss progress through the project so far using the Knowledge Organiser and have the learning objective explained in context of previous learning and the intended journey. 

Learning objectives are recorded in books.  The pupil activities relate closely to the objectives. Lessons are differentiated by task and by recording method to allow all pupils to achieve the learning intentions as independently as possible and demonstrate the skills being taught. 

Children’s knowledge and skills develop progressively as they move through the school, not only to enable them to meet the requirements of the National Curriculum but to prepare them to become competent scientists in secondary education. 

As the children move from lower to upper primary, they become increasingly autonomous in their decision-making when carrying out investigations. They become systematic and accurate in collecting and analysing data and can evaluate their results.

Impact

Enjoyment of the Science curriculum promotes achievement, confidence, and good behaviour. Pupils have a strong desire to embrace challenges and to be resilient learners.

Our children make connections across their learning: between subjects, between year groups, between themes learnt within one year. Our children embed their learning and recall knowledge. They can apply, justify, and communicate their knowledge and learning effectively using relevant and appropriate vocabulary.

Our science curriculum is well coordinated, The subject leader monitors the coverage and quality of science across the school.

Teachers plan to provide the greatest breadth and balance of activities to deepen the children’s understanding of the world and ensure lessons are engaging and challenging. 

Teachers plan for intervention and challenge within the curriculum to ensure all pupils make good or better progress and can recall previous knowledge well. Children are assessed during every lesson, which enables our teachers to plan the next steps for each child.  Teachers assess against the learning objectives and the basic skill requirements for each year group. This enables pupils to make progress within individual lessons and over time.  

This year, progress will be tracked through an online tracking system against National Curriculum expectations and working scientifically skills. Termly analysis will spot gaps in children’s knowledge quickly and allow for immediate catch up through targeted intervention. This will be recorded in our action plans. The impact and measure of this is to ensure children not only acquire the appropriate age-related knowledge linked to the science curriculum, but also skills which equip them to progress from their starting points, and within their everyday lives.

Progress and attainment is reported to parents and carers at parents’ evenings and end of year reports. At Twickenham Primary, we will measure the impact of our curriculum through:

• attainment and progress data
• attendance rates
• behaviour records
• pupil interviews, book scrutinies and subject observations
• curriculum reviewing and the sharing of good practice with peers

All children will have:

• A wider variety of skills linked to both scientific knowledge and understanding, and scientific enquiry/investigative skills.
• A richer vocabulary which will enable them to articulate their understanding of taught concepts.
• High aspirations, which will see them through to further study, work and a successful adult life.