At Broomwood, our children foster the curiosity for science through exploration and questioning, enabling them to be ready for the next stage of their learning and inspire them to pursue a career within the science field. We use Kapow’s Primary Science Scheme to meet the aims of the National Curriculum and the Early Years Framework to develop a sense of excitement and curiosity about natural phenomena and an understanding of how the scientific community contributes to our past, present and future. We want pupils to develop a complex knowledge of Biology, Chemistry and Physics, but also adopt a broad range of skills in working scientifically and beyond.

Our curriculum aims to encourage critical thinking and empower pupils to question the hows and whys of the world around them. To further support children’s scientific understanding, we complement Kapow with our own scientist overview of learning and extra investigative work so that children can experience the 5 working scientifically strands.

 

The Kapow Primary Science Scheme establishes:

- A strong focus on developing knowledge alongside scientific skills across Biology, Chemistry and Physics.

- Curiosity and excitement about familiar and unknown observations.

- Challenging misconceptions and demystifying truths.

- Continuous progression by building on practical and investigative skills across all units.

- Critical thinking, with the ability to ask perceptive questions and explain and analyse evidence.

- Development of scientific literacy using wide-ranging, specialist vocabulary.

 

Kapow Primary’s Science scheme of work enables pupils to meet the end of key stage attainment targets in the National curriculum and the aims also align with those set out in the National curriculum.

Our Primary Science curriculum is designed to with three strands which run throughout each unit.

• Scientific knowledge and understanding
• Science in action
• Working scientifically

Under these three strands, the Science curriculum is broken further into:

• Plants
• Animals including humans
• Living things and their habitats
• Materials
• Energy
• Forces, Earth and Space
• Making Connections

In our Early Years’ Foundation Stage, children access science as part of their Understanding of the World area of learning. At Broomwood, our intention is to support children to develop a strong scientific understanding of the world around us which enables them to develop when continuing their science learning through school. Our progressive curriculum across the EYFS from pre-school to reception enables children to have strong foundations in their science knowledge and are more readily prepared for KS1 science.

Understanding the world is taught through carpet sessions linked to children’s areas of interest and the EYFS topics and then accessed by the children through the continuous provision. Out intention is for all children to access high quality science teaching in the EYFS as well as in their continuous provision areas of the classroom.

Through continuous provision, children can interact with a range of scientific concepts, such as water play, growing in the garden, mini beasts etc. to provide children with a strong foundation in scientific understanding.

Science in the EYFS is practical and hands on to enable the children to relate to the world around them and develop their scientific curiosity. This supports children to continue into their Primary Science learning with a good understanding of the world around them.

At Broomwood Primary School, we used Kapow to ignite our science curriculum to ensure progression across the subject as well as providing teachers with subject knowledge CPD to ensure that our children have access to high quality teaching to enable them to become creative and investigative learners with a curiosity about the world around them. This curriculum meets the aims of the National Curriculum for Science and the Ofsted Research Review into Science through the following strands:

• Scientific knowledge and understanding of:
  • Biology – Living organisms and vital processes.
  • Chemistry – matter and its properties
  • Physics – how the world we live in ‘works’

• Working scientifically – processes and methods of science to answer questions about the world around us and to practise the skills of being a scientist.
• Science in action – uses and implications of science in the past present and for the future. This is linked to our community’s science capital and supports children to gain an understanding of the important work done by scientists.

Scientific Knowledge and Understanding

Each unit is based on key science disciplines of Biology, Chemistry and Physics and to support progression throughout the school, the National Curriculum is grouped into six key areas of science.

• Plants – Covered in Y1, Y2, Y3
• Animals including Humans – Covered in Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4, Y5, Y6
• Living things and their habitats – Covered in Y2, Y4, Y5, Y6
• Materials - Covered in Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4, Y5
• Energy - Covered in Y3, Y4, Y6
• Forces, Earth and Space - Covered in Y1, Y3, Y5
• Making Connections - Covered in Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4, Y5, Y6

Teaching in Science

The Kapow Primary Science curriculum is a spiral curriculum which lends itself to our learning approaches at Broomwood with essential knowledge and skills revisited with increasing complexity which allows pupils to revise and build upon their previous learning. At Broomwood, we provide children with a science flashback 4 at the beginning of most sessions to explicitly support with these recall skills to ensure knowledge understood throughout the whole school. A range of engaging recall activities promote frequent pupil reflection on prior learning ensuring that new learning is approached with confidence.

Learning from prior year groups is outlined in our Science progression overview to ensure that knowledge builds upon prior learning and check for misconceptions before teaching new substantive knowledge. The knowledge organisers, which are introduced at the beginning of each topic and are accessible for children, highlight their prior learning so that children can recall the facts they know and remember previous information. The knowledge organisers are then referred to throughout the topic to support children with their knowledge from one lesson to another.

Our science lessons at Broomwood are inclusive to support all learners to make progress. Teachers explicitly model learning to support understanding of subject-specific vocabulary, which is be displayed around the classroom and accessible to children through the use of knowledge mats; substantive knowledge, with objectives taken from clear progression documents; and disciplinary science skills linked to working scientifically elements of the National Curriculum allowing children to then access more complete concepts.

Throughout lessons, all children have the opportunity to wonder and ask questions. This is an important element of science as children need to be able to explore and apply their knowledge and consider a range of possibilities and options. This builds creative and analytical thinkers and in turn develops a child’s scientific way of thinking.

Our Science teaching incorporate various strategies from independent tasks to paired and group work, including practical, creative, computer-based and collaborative tasks. This variety means that lessons are engaging and appeal to those with different learning styles and adaptive to ensure that practise is inclusive to all pupil groups. The multi-sensory approach of teaching at Broomwood lends itself to teaching science as children are able to use their strengths to access the complete Science curriculum. Kapow also offers guidance for adapting each lesson to ensure that all children are able to access the learning and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required.

Working Scientifically

Working scientifically skills are integrated with conceptual understanding rather than being taught discretely which provides frequent, but relevant, opportunities for developing scientific enquiry skills. The Kapow Primary Science Scheme utilises practical activities that aid in the progression of individual skills and also provide opportunities for full investigations. Children are able to work collaboratively to share their best practise, develop hypotheses, explore concepts and compare results to create conclusions.

In addition, across the school, we have an embedded structure of working scientifically which provide children with the opportunity to undertake a full scientific investigation. This also gives teachers the opportunity to assess for working scientifically skills across their class and highlight skills which may need to be addressed further in upcoming topics.

Our school is well resourced with a vast array of science equipment specific to our curriculum. This enables us as teachers to be able to provide a high standard of working scientifically education to all children across the whole school, meaning that they can develop their science skills appropriately.

To ensure that working scientifically education is safe, all staff have access to the ASE CLEAPPS book which outlines the best safe practises to use in science.

Science in Action and Science Capital

The Science in Action strand is interwoven throughout the scheme to make the concepts and skills relevant to pupils and inspiring for future application. At Broomwood, we consolidate this by linking a scientist from past and current research with each of the areas to ensure our children recognise a real-life application of the science topic they are learning about as well as understanding the work which scientists have done.

To support the science capital of our community at Broomwood, we provide children with a range of opportunities to broaden their horizons and allow them to experience an enthusiasm for the subject. These activities strengthen the science taught in school and give children a science opportunity they may have otherwise not had the chance to encounter. These opportunities include:

• STEM week – an immersive week where children can experience a range of hands on STEM activities themed around a particular stimulus.
• Earth Day – focussing on sustainability and led in collaboration with our Student Eco Council.
• Science and STEM club – offered to different groups across school throughout the year and delivered by Science and STEM lead.
• Science Visitors –
• Experiential visits –
  • Wonder Dome – A mobile planetarium which visits the school to teach Year 5 about their Earth and Space topic.
  • ANIMALS – EYFS
  • Star Chaser Rocket
• Weekly Forest School lessons – these are for year groups across the school and delivered by our Forest School leader in the outdoor classroom.
• Planting, growing and harvesting food – Part of ‘Living off the Land’ club.
• Science at home – during school holidays, science investigations are shared with children and parents/carers on the school newsletter with prizes given out to children.

CPD for Staff

Strong subject knowledge is vital for staff to deliver a highly effective and robust Science curriculum.

Each unit of lessons includes multiple teacher videos and resources to develop subject knowledge, target

fundamental misconceptions effectively and support ongoing CPD. Kapow has been created to build

confidence amongst non-specialist primary teachers who are required to deliver and assess the full

Science curriculum and maximise pupil progression. Videos created by subject specialists feature

troubleshooting advice for practical work that does not go to plan, suggested questioning and support for

tackling misconceptions, as well as recordings of practical tasks that can be utilised as demonstrations in

the classroom or to support pupil reflection on their own observations.

Science in EYFS

At our school, a high-quality science education is provided for all pupils from Pre-School all the way to Year 6. Science at Foundation Stage is covered in the ‘Understanding the World’ area of the EYFS Curriculum.  It is introduced indirectly through activities that encourage every child to explore, problem solve, observe, predict, think, make decisions, and talk about the world around them.

From guidance from Development Matters, exemplification materials for ELG ‘The Natural World’ and exceeding statements.

Pre-School

• Repeat actions have an effect
• Explore materials with different properties
• Explore natural materials indoors and outside.
• Explore and respond to different natural phenomena in their setting and on trips. Repeat actions that have an effect.

Nursery:

• Use all their senses in hands-on exploration of natural materials.
• Explore collections of materials with similar and/or different properties
• Talk about what they see using a wide vocabulary.
• Explore how things work
• Plant seeds and care for growing plants.
• Understand the key features of the life cycle of a plant and animal.
• Begin to understand the need to respect and care for the natural environment and all living things.
• Explore and talk about the different forces they can feel.
• Talk about the difference between materials and changes they notice.

Reception:

• Explore the natural world around them.
• Describe what they see, hear and feel whilst outside
• Understand the effects of changing seasons.

In the EYFS children use a range of ‘Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning’ in their independent learning. These can be seen as complementing ‘Working Scientifically’.

• Playing and exploring – engagement. Finding out and exploring; playing with what they know; being willing to ‘have a go’
• Active learning – motivation. Being involved and concentrating; keeping trying; enjoying achieving what they set out to do
• Creating and thinking critically – thinking. Having their own ideas; making links; choosing ways to do things

Assessment of understanding

The impact of the Kapow Primary Science Scheme is monitored at Broomwood in a range of ways. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives and any relevant scientific enquiry skills. Summative assessments are built into each unit through a unit quiz and a knowledge and skills catcher which can be used at the end of the unit. Sometimes, Kahoot quizzes are also be used to check progress and check all pupils have made good levels of progress. This data can then be used by the class teacher to address misconceptions in the moment and ensure that children have a good level of understanding before covering the topic in subsequent years and key stages. Opportunities for children to communicate using scientific vocabulary will also form part of the assessment process in each unit.

 At the end of each term, children will complete a summative assessment from Head Start where disciplinary and substantive knowledge is assessed to monitor the overall attainment in science across the school. The scaled scores are inputted onto target tracker each term, and this is analysed by the science lead to see where there are any areas of concerns. Teachers use this summative assessment, along with ongoing formative assessment to provide children with a final judgement of either below expected, expected, or above expected at the end of the school year

The approach to teaching science at Broomwood results in 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.  At Broomwood, our aim is to ensure that all children are equipped with the scientific skills and knowledge that will enable them to be ready for the next stage of their learning and for life as an adult in our community and the wider world. We want the children to have thoroughly enjoyed learning about science and be able to recall their learning and experiences over time. We aim for them to be confident and be able to talk about their learning in science using subject specific vocabulary and that the quality of work is good, demonstrating pupils are acquiring knowledge, skills and vocabulary as well as develop their ability to conduct their own investigations.

After implementing our Science curriculum, supplemented by Kapow’s Primary Science scheme, pupils should leave their year equipped with the requisite skills and knowledge to succeed in their next level of science learning, onto Key Stage 3 science and furthermore into science literate citizens. They will have the necessary skills to confidently and meaningfully question and explore the world around them, as well as critically and analytically experiencing and observing phenomena. Pupils will understand the significance and impact of science on society. Our broad and balanced science curriculum allows children to develop knowledge and skills in science which will prepare them for their futures.

The expected impact of assessment is that the children will:

• Develop a body of foundational knowledge for the Biology topics in the National curriculum: Plants; Animals, Including Humans; Living Things and Their Habitats; Evolution and Inheritance.
• Develop a body of foundational knowledge for the Chemistry topics in the National curriculum: Everyday Materials; Uses f Everyday Materials; Properties and Changes of Materials; States of Matter; Rocks.
• Develop a body of foundational knowledge for the Physics topics in the National curriculum: Seasonal Changes; Forces and Magnets; Sound; Light; Electricity; Earth and Space.
• Be able to evaluate and identify the methods that ‘real world’ scientists use to develop and answer scientific questions.
• Identify and use equipment effectively to accurately gather, measure and record data.
• Be able to display and convey data in a variety of ways, including graphs.
• Analyse data in order to identify, classify, group, and find patterns.
• Use evidence to formulate explanations and conclusions.
• Demonstrate scientific literacy through presenting concepts and communicating ideas using scientific vocabulary.
• Understand the importance of resilience and a growth mindset, particularly in reference to scientific enquiry.
• Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Science.