In the EYFS many aspects of The World contribute towards children’s budding scientific learning. The children have a safe and stimulating environment which allows them to explore and experiment with a range of natural and manufactured materials. They learn to observe the features of objects and substances, recognising differences and similarities and are helped to explore and understand the environment, inside and out. They are encouraged to talk about what they are finding out and to ask questions, make observations and draw pictures of animals and plants. They should draw upon their experiences of books to support their science learning and understand some key processes and changes that take place in the natural world.Accordion Title

At Fairfield, the “Working Scientifically” ideology of the National Curriculum is recognised in our school as our “Golden threads”. We recognise that pupils should be taught to use practical scientific methods, processes and skills through the teaching of the programme of study content and have made these more explicit for our children. We recognise that it is these important threads that help children to visualise themselves as scientists and the children are taught to use the vocabulary and language associated with these during science lessons and cross curricular learning. These golden threads have been adopted in our Learning Outside the Classroom lessons, across the spectrum of the school, to further embed these key skills of Science. They have also been developed to “tie” our Science, DT and LOTC learning together – using our golden threads.

In Key Stage One and Two children work through the objectives within the National Curriculum. Science should be taught regularly throughout the term. The pupils should be taught the key knowledge and facts, alongside the scientific skills they will need to plan and carry out their own enquiries. Where appropriate, pupils will also find out about the work of famous scientists from the past. There are opportunities to develop and use science skills in other curriculum areas and this is important to our bespoke curriculum mission at Fairfield.  

Our science planning, across the school, includes full coverage of the National Curriculum objectives and gives equal coverage to the different areas throughout the year groups to ensure continuity and progression. Our science scheme of work is in three phases (long, medium and short term planning). The long term plan maps the scientific units studied in each term for each key stage

The medium term plan, which is based on the National Curriculum objectives, gives details of each unit of work for each term for each year group. The units are repeated in different year groups so that they build on prior learning and build progression into the scheme of work, ensuring that pupils are increasingly challenged as they move up through the school. Whilst these areas are taught, class teachers take account of any “weak composites” in children’s learning and address them accordingly. These are key to ensuring that misconceptions are addressed and that they are strengthened before building upon them, the following academic year. The class teacher is responsible for writing the individual lesson plans, which are the short term plans. These plans list the specific learning objectives, teaching, activities, differentiation, outcomes and adult support for each lesson. Teachers are able to adapt and modify the scheme of work to suit their pupils’ interests, questions, current events and style of teaching as long as the objectives are covered.

Science lessons should be taught using a variety of teaching and learning styles. The aim is to develop pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding. This is done through whole class teaching; while at other times the pupils work in groups to plan and carry out enquiries to answer scientific questions, including those that they have asked themselves. The pupils will have the opportunity to use a variety of data, such as statistics, graphs, pictures and photographs to enhance their learning. ICT is to be used when appropriate. The pupils should engage in a wide range of activities including observing, recording, measuring, presenting findings and problem solving. They will carry out practical enquiries with increasing independence.

We recognise that pupils have different experiences, knowledge and abilities and ensure that appropriate learning opportunities are provided for all pupils by matching activities to their ability. This can be achieved in a variety of ways. For example:

• Setting open ended tasks which can have a variety of responses;
• Setting tasks which become progressively more challenging;
• Providing different tasks for different groups of pupils;
• Providing a range of resources to support pupils’ learning;
• Providing adult support to pupils who need extra support.

We seek to widen the opportunities for learning in the following ways:

• using the school grounds and outdoor area to learn and explore;
• ensuring ALL children throughout the school have the opportunity to learn at Forest School, inviting visitors from the community to speak to the children, eg Neil Edwards, Blue Cross, local village farmer brings animals etc.
• Organising visits out to extend Scientific discovery.
• Home learning eg. Education City, Espresso.