Science Vision
At the Flying High Academy, our science curriculum, underpinned by current research and the National Curriculum, contributes to ensuring our pupils are well-rounded individuals. Through science, we encourage pupils to explore the world around them and develop their natural curiosity to become knowledgeable, reasoned thinkers. By applying their learning through a working scientifically approach, children will utilise creativity, reasoning and problem-solving skills to answer questions they are posed and those they ask of themselves. We aim to help children understand that they have an important, everyday impact on the world around them – articulating this in ways that develop their oral and written skills and showcased through authentic outcomes. As a result, we intend to inspire children through an engaging science curriculum that hones in on the needs of the school and the individual pupils, helping them prepare for future learning and provide aspirations for future careers.
Aims
Our science curriculum aims for pupils to:
develop scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics
develop understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science through different types of science enquiries that help them to answer scientific questions about the world around them
gain the scientific knowledge required to understand the uses and implications of science, today and for the future.
We are aspirant for all children to leave the Flying High Academy as scientists.
Intent
At FHAL, our curriculum is based on the National Curriculum for Key Stages 1 & 2 and the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework. These documents stipulate the expectations which inform the intent of our curriculum, ensuring a high ambition for all. Further ambition is gleaned through the use of expert resources from the Science Association.
Statements from the National Curriculum for science and from the ‘understanding the world’ educational programme of the EYFS have been broken down and sequenced into strands and year groups. We call this a key knowledge progression document (KKPD). It contains key substantive, procedural and disciplinary knowledge that children need to know and remember.
Composite knowledge from the KKPD is mapped on to a whole school long-term plan and sequenced onto a science subject map. Links are made across year groups and subjects through deliberate and diverse content choices. Examples include beginning with the life cycle of a frog in Year 2, then further deepening this understanding by focusing specifically on the poison dart frog in Year 5 as the life cycle differs. There are also links across our Geography and Science, focusing on Malawi as a place of interest when comparing biomes in Year 5.
Each science KKPD statement is broken down into component (granular) knowledge and key vocabulary. These are used to support the creation of learning sequences and to identify ‘sticky knowledge’ – the most important knowledge children need to remember for the next stage.
The science KKPD and component knowledge progression are used by teachers to create learning sequences and objectives. These are plotted on an enquiry or a discrete medium-term plan.
Implementation
The FHAL science curriculum is generally delivered through a discrete approach. Science can be delivered as an enhancer to an enquiry (when this enables children to answer the enquiry question to its fullest).
Individual lessons are planned in detail using our lesson design model. This has been informed by leading research such as Rosenshine’s principles of instruction. The model includes five, flexible elements:
Reactivate
Teach, facilitate, model
Learning together
Independent practice
Reflection
We use a range of varied teaching strategies to deliver science lessons. We believe in whole-class teaching methods and we combine these with enquiry-based research activities. We encourage children to ask, as well as answer, scientific enquiry questions. We offer them the opportunity to use a range of informative sources to build up key foundational knowledge and concepts as well the application of a variety of working scientifically skills to encourage children to recognise the power of rational explanation and develop a sense of excitement and curiosity about natural phenomena. Scientific enquiries are crucial to our science learning and are used to immerse children within the different disciplines of science.
Our learning environments are used as immersive and instructional teaching tools. Learning journeys are organised with key knowledge and vocabulary accessible so that children can locate and use this key information easily and efficiently.