Science
Subject Lead: Miss Thomas
At St. Joseph’s, we are committed to ensuring the curriculum is purposeful, progressive and empowering for every child. We value all of our children and celebrate diversity of experience, need, interest, and achievement. Our curriculum provokes curiosity and excitement for all children at St. Joseph’s. We recognise that we are building the foundations for life-long learning with Christ at the centre. A shared love of literature throughout school and our faith life and Gospel values, Trust Character Virtues and British Values sit alongside our curriculum drivers. Our curriculum drivers are what make our curriculum unique to us here at St. Joseph’s. They are woven through all that we do and underpin our shared belief that our role is to support and help our children to understand their place within their local town, their country and in their world as a global citizen; to have experiences that become part of their life story; and aspire to achieve their very best, having been shown that there is a world of possibility awaiting them, outside of the school gates.
Intent
At St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy we intend for children to;
- Develop their natural curiosity and confidence to question the world around them.
- Develop a passion for science; its application in past, present and future technologies.
- Have a wide range of opportunities to think scientifically and develop their scientific skills to make predictions, plan fair tests and draw conclusions.
Implementation
At St. Joseph’s Science is taught weekly following the National Curriculum.
Scientific skills are progressive, these are taught across a sequence of lessons and pupils are given a range of practical opportunities to develop and master these. Where possible use is made of the school grounds and the local area. We encourage school visits and visitors in to school to enable children to gain first-hand experiences to enrich their learning and cultural capital.
Cross-curricular links with other subjects are exploited, see our curriculum overview. Science is a subject that can enrich and be enriched by meaningful links to other subjects, for example reading, writing, recording and interpreting results in maths and using computing skills.
Each lesson begins with a retrieval task, this is a 10-minute activity that is linked to something taught earlier that term, within that year group or phase. A 'retrieval revisit' is timetabled each week in KS2 to consolidate learning and inform future retrieval planning.
For each topic children are provided with a ‘Learn it – Link it’ booklet which details facts about the topic, prior learning connected to the topic and a vocabulary bank.
Impact
- Pupils will enjoy learning about Science and be curious and confident in asking questions about the world around them.
- Pupils of all abilities will be able to observe, question, theorise, plan fair tests, have the skills to carry out science investigations, record results, see patterns and draw conclusions from these investigations.
- Pupils will be ready to build on their scientific knowledge and skills in their forthcoming secondary education.
Enrichment
At St Joseph’s we offer a variety of enrichment to develop scientific knowledge and opportunities to pose their own questions and work scientifically.
Each year, we participate in British Science Week. The aim is to inspire a lifelong love of science and further develop investigative skills. The most recent Science Week theme was Growth, we learned about plant growth and the growth of renewable energy. Once a year, we take part in STEM day where our children use scientific technology, engineering and mathematic skills to solve a problem.
We too offer opportunities for children to experience science first-hand. Most recently we have hatched chicks, had a planetarium in school and had a visit from some very interesting animals and insects.
