Science

Curious, Loving, Independent, Creative and Knowledgeable

Intent

Our curriculum vision is that our children are curious, loving, independent, creative and knowledgeable (CLICK) citizens of the future.

At St Antony’s, we are scientists. We want our children to love science and to aspire to be the curious and have an enquiring mind, to learn about the physical, chemical and biological aspects of our world.  Pupils are also required to work scientifically and investigate complex concepts with increasing skills and independence.  Children investigate key questions through practical experiments and working scientifically to challenge misconceptions.  The science curriculum has been carefully crafted so that our children develop their science capital.

We have designed the science curriculum beginning with the end in mind. The subject content as outlined in the national curriculum supports the needs of our children and allows them to retain knowledge in their long-term memory.

St Antony’s is situated in a leafy suburb of the London Borough of Redbridge and the majority of children come from professional homes with access to a rich cultural capital. What our children need, is a more global viewpoint and an understanding of the diverse world in which they live.

As a Catholic school, our faith is at the heart of everything that we do and the principles of catholic social teaching are therefore drivers for our curriculum. It is also inspired by Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato si’, which calls us to “Listen to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor who suffer most” and by the UN Global Goals, in particular, Sustainable Cities and Communities (11), Climate Action (13) Life Below Water (14) and Life on Land (15).

It is for these reasons that our science curriculum is as follows:

Implementation

Rationale for progression within Science:

EYFS begins with topics that are familiar to the children including (All About Me, the Seasons, the Seaside). 

In Key Stage 1 they then progress to develop their scientific knowledge of animals including humans, the seasons, living things and their habitats and plants. The principal focus of science teaching at this point is to enable pupils to experience and observe phenomena, looking more closely at the natural and humanly constructed world around them and so topics are revisited throughout the year to observe changes such as how plants grow and how the seasons change. Scientific enquiry skills include classifying, observing over time, pattern seeking and researching are taught throughout each topic. Fair testing is introduced in the materials topic in KS1. 

The principal focus of science teaching in lower Key Stage 2 is to enable pupils to broaden their scientific view of the world around them. Children continue to build on previous learning and in Year 3 the topic of rocks is introduced early on to excite them. The topic of light is studied in the summer term where environmental conditions are more favourable to investigate different lines of enquiry.  This builds a foundation for the topic of electricity in Year 4.  It is also appropriate to teach the states of matter before sound as children need to have an understanding of solids, liquids and gases in order to understand that vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear. 

In upper Key Stage 2 pupils develop a deeper understanding of a wide range of scientific ideas. In year 5 they deepen their understanding of properties and changes of materials. The more conceptual topics of Earth and Space and Evolution and Inheritance are taught in Year 6.