Streethouse Primary School

Science 

At Streethouse, we understand and embrace the idea that science is a core subject. We aim to encourage curiosity and questioning through exciting, practical, hands on experiences. In order to do this, we provide a science curriculum which enables our children to explore and discover the world around them. The children are encouraged to make links between science in the classroom and the real world and the impact that science has on their lives. 

Intent

Our Science Curriculum fulfils the statutory requirements outlined in the National curriculum (2014) and was designed with recommendations of the Ofsted Research review series: science and Finding the optimum: the science subject report in mind.

At Streethouse we follow the Kapow Science Curriculum, this aims to enable children to understand the world around them through a scientific lens. In doing so, this curriculum seeks to ensure that pupils are well-equipped to go forth into their secondary education and later life with curiosity, passion and a desire for discovery.

The Kapow Science Curriculum builds knowledge incrementally. Pupils have multiple opportunities to secure and build upon their knowledge by revisiting subject content at carefully sequenced points throughout the curriculum. By building upon their knowledge in a cumulative manner, the curriculum ensures pupils secure greater breadth and depth in their understanding of scientific knowledge, skills and the discipline of science. This incremental approach helps teachers to identify knowledge gaps and easily look back at previous content to see what they need to address.

Implementation

The scheme of work has been designed as a spiral curriculum with the following key principles in mind: 

• Cyclical - Pupils return to the key knowledge and skills repeatedly during their time in primary school.
• Increasing depth - Each time a skill is revisited it is covered with greater complexity and in varying contexts.
• Prior knowledge - Prior knowledge is utilised so pupils can build upon previous foundations, rather than starting again

Impact

Every lesson begins with the ‘Recap and recall’ section which is intended to allow pupils retrieval practice of key knowledge relevant to the upcoming lesson. This section also provides teachers with an opportunity to make informal judgements about whether pupils have retained prior learning and are ready to move on.

Each lesson contains the ‘Assessing progress and understanding’ section which helps teachers to identify those pupils who are secure in their learning or working at a greater depth in each lesson.

Each unit of work assesses children’s understanding and retention of key knowledge using an assessment quiz with multiple choice and open-ended questions. In addition, each unit uses either a knowledge catcher or a knowledge