Science

Science Curriculum Page
If you have any questions about Science - speak to Mrs Hayter, the Science Lead

intent

At Trimley St Martin Primary school, we believe that a high quality science education provides children with the foundations for understanding the world around them. Science has changed the world we live in and is vital to the world’s future prosperity. Our aim is create scientists of the future by teaching children essential aspects of knowledge, methods processes and uses of science.
Through building up a foundation of knowledge, concepts and a love of learning, children will be able to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave and analyse causes. Science in our school is about developing children’s ideas and ways of working through investigation which enable them to make sense of the world around them through investigation, as well as using and applying knowledge and skills.

Using our Investigative Curriculum Cycle approach, the staff at TSM ensure that children are exposed to high quality teaching and learning experiences. Children explore concepts and the world around them by developing their scientific enquiry and investigative skills. They are immersed in scientific vocabulary, which aids children’s knowledge of not only the topic they are studying, but of the world around them. We aim to inspire our pupils to become our next generation of scientists and to develop an understanding of the varied aspirations and careers within science available to our pupils when they become adults. We intend to provide all children, regardless of ethnic origin, class, gender or disability, with a broad, balanced, progressive and exciting science curriculum.

implementation

As well as ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in science, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school.

Our curriculum is taught in discrete subjects, as outlined in a long term plan. This ensures progression through year groups and coverage of all of the requirements of the National Curriculum.

In EYFS, the teachers plan scientific activities for the children to work on as part of their continuous provision.
In Year 1, children can expect to spend at least an hour a week on Science.
In Year 2, children will spend at least 1.5 hours on Science each week.
In KS2, each class spends 2 hours on Science each week.

Lessons follow materials from Rising Stars and are also supplemented by a range of other Science teaching resources.

We ensure that all children are provided with rich learning experiences that aim to:

Prepare our children for life in an increasingly scientific and technological world today and in the future.
Help our children acquire a growing understanding of the nature, processes and methods of scientific ideas.
Help develop and extend our children’s scientific concept of their world.
Build on our children’s natural curiosity and developing a scientific approach to problems.
Encouraging open-mindedness, self-assessment, perseverance and developing the skills of investigation.
Develop the use of scientific language, recording and techniques.
Develop the use of reading and computing in investigating and recording.
Make links between science and other subjects.
Introduce and explore roles and aspirations in science based subjects.

Substantive knowledge is acquired through progressive sequences of work to ensure that pupils are equipped with the essential knowledge needed when working scientifically within the same sequence.

Below is the key coverage from Years 1-6 which children will cover at Trimley St Martin Primary School

Key Coverage
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impact

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.
All children will have:

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

Assessment takes place after every lesson and children are assessed on their understanding of the topic rather than what they are able to record. This is done through observations and questioning during the lesson, in addition to the variety of outcomes that support all learners. At the end of each term teachers transfer these assessments to "Target Tracker" to provide an overview of science across the school. Class teachers and Subject Leaders can use these judgements to make an overall judgement of where the children are currently working at, where pupils require further support or where pupils are able to be provided with further challenge.

Science Policy 2021
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Royal Society Young People's book prize 2021

We have been really lucky to be invited to take part in the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize 2021. This means we have been sent 6 shortlisted books to review. I have worked with a small group of children from Years 5 and 6 and a separate group of children from Years 3 and 4 to do this. After the children had had the opportunity to look at each of the books, we then discussed which we felt was our overall winner – the book the children found was the most inspirational, easy to read, fun to look at and engaging.

The children took their roles of judges very seriously and were really good at commenting on the books they read each week. They are all really looking forward to being able to have more opportunities to look at the books and I’m sure they will be recommending them to their friends!

Science At trimley St Martin 2022-2023

Reception

The children have been learning about space and were very interested in what it would be like to an astronaut.
We learnt about how eating food is very different when you are in space. We watched a video of Tim Peake showing how he prepared food in the space station. We learnt that food is often dehydrated (the water is removed) so that it is lighter. We also learnt that food has to be eaten from special sealed containers or bags so it doesn't float away when there is no gravity. This would make a big mess and could also be dangerous if crumbs or liquid got into the equipment.
We had a go at making our own space dessert by rehydrating some powdered dessert and then ate it from our special space packaging. We talked about the way that water would have to be carefully added to the packet of food using a special machine and tubing.
The children loved their space dessert and were having some great conversations about how different life would be living on the space station.

Year 1

The children have been learning about our sense of hearing.
We played a game in which Mrs Tubby played different sounds on the computer and we had to write down on our whiteboards what we thought the sound was.
We heard a police siren, a lion oar, lightning, kittens meowing, church bells, an aeroplane, Santa's sleigh, a rainstorm, a bird singing and many more....in fact we enjoyed the game so much we wanted to keep on playing!

Year 2

The children have continued to look at materials and how they can be changed to move. We made flying fish and found different ways to make them fly in the air using different heights and ways of letting them go.

To continue with our topic of keeping healthy, we have looked today at staying safe on the road and whilst cycling. We used hard boiled eggs to experiment how different materials may be suitable for a cycle helmet.

Year 3

The children have been looking at parts of a flower and pollination. We drew beautiful pictures of flowers and labelled all of the parts. The female part of the flower includes the stigma, style and ovary and this joins together to be called the ‘pistil’ or ‘carpel’. The male parts are the anther and filament which join together to be called the ‘stamen’.

Year 4

We used our electric circuit this week to test various materials to decide if they were conductors of electricity or insulators. We then went on to test lots of different circuits. Firstly we predicted which ones would light the bulb up then we tested them out.

During a new topic on light we looked at which objects are sources of light, and then used torches to explore materials in the classroom to see which materials reflect light.

Year 5

We carried out lots of great experiments to learn lots of interesting facts about sound.

The children were learning about forensic techniques. They learnt that no one has the same finger prints and there are different types. The children created their own prints and compared them with Miss Lanigan's. They also looked at handwriting samples and examined fibres. Then, the children learnt how to lift fingerprints.

We have begun to learn about plants. The children learnt about bulbs to begin with and how they reproduce asexually by sending off little bulblets and creating a clone. Then, they looked at how plants such as strawberries, mint and spider plants reproduce asexually by sending out a runner, creating a daughter plant, which is again a clone of the mother plant. We looked at how a flower is made up of female and male parts and then how a flower uses sexual reproduction to pollinate another flower. This happens when the pollen (male part) makes contact with the ovary (female part) and the eggs are then fertilised. Finally, we looked at the life-cycle of a plant. Here is a selection of photos of the children's work.

Year 6

The children had to be electricians solving problems with some broken circuits in the classroom. They were often able to quickly identify the problems i.e. missing batteries, buzzer put in the circuit the wrong way around, broken bulb and then put them right - but they didn't always remember to break it again for the next group!

As part of a lesson on classifying critters, the children were split into groups. Each child was expected to research one of the vertebrate groups and then report back to the rest of their group so, by the end of the lesson, everyone had learnt about some of the characteristics of all of the vertebrate groups as well as some animals that fit into them. They then presented this information in an exploding book.