Science

Intent

At Hormead, we recognise that everyone is a unique child of God with individual gifts and talents that need to be recognised and nurtured. Our Science curriculum is a unique opportunity for children to explore, discover and investigate the world around them using a variety of approaches to answer relevant scientific questions. Our child-led investigations ensure that they develop scientific enquiry skills, such as:

• observing over time;
• pattern seeking; identifying, classifying and grouping;
• comparative and fair testing (controlled investigations);
• researching using secondary sources.

These enquiries improve the children's scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding by giving them opportunities to explore the nature, processes and methods of science. This helps them to answer scientific questions about the world around them.

Once they are equipped with the scientific knowledge they begin to understand the uses and implications of science, today and for the future. 

 We have carefully created a Science Overview which sequences key knowledge and concepts across Years 1-4. While it is important that pupils make progress, it is also vitally important that they develop secure understanding of each key block of knowledge and concepts in order to progress to the next stage. 

Science Knowledge Organisers

We have introduced a new idea into school to help children know and remember more; the 'sticky' knowledge of each topic. Each document contains the essential knowledge that children will need to know as part of the new topic they will be studying in class. These Knowledge Organisers are designed to be used at home by parents and in class to help children learn the information contained within. We want every pupil to be able to recall the information on these sheets off by heart by the end of the topic.

The latest teaching research has found that it is important to keep revisiting the information that has already been learned in previous weeks to keep it fresh in the memory.  We are confident that these Knowledge Organisers will help our children to develop knowledge on a wide range of topics and will significantly improve their vocabulary. This in turn will make them more confident in class and help them to develop their reading and writing skills.