Intent
As a school we aim to ensure that all children leave us prepared for the world as 'Global Explorers' equipped to pursue future careers. Being 'creative and aspirational' are two of the big ideas in our curriculum. Science stimulates and excites children’s curiosity and at St Nicholas’ we believe that science is crucial to their understanding of the world around us. Through questioning, we encourage children to become inquisitive and independent learners.  Children love the chance to learn when they are totally hands-on and finding things out for themselves — the perfect way to understand our world. 

We are very fortunate at our school to be surrounded by a variety of habitats and environments; including the Bourne River and our school’s several environmental areas. Children will shine with awe and wonder as they explore the local environment; from welly walks looking at plants, animals and seasons, awe and wonder moments using cupboard-based ingredients and practical lessons investigating materials, sound, circuits and light. 

By the end of KS1 children will be working scientifically and have developed their scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics.

By the end of KS2 children will have developed their methods of enquiry and be able to draw conclusions based on their data and observations and justify their answers using scientific rational.

Curriculum

Being a mixed year group setting in some of the Key Stage 2 classes means we review and plan our science topics to ensure our children have complete access to the Science National Curriculum.  A detailed progression document ensures all children access each of the scientific themes, with regular tapping back to previous learning.  This ensures that topics are revisited, thereby enabling a deep and secure level of understanding and learning.  Knowledge, skills and specific vocabulary are embedded into termly planning and help form part of the assessment process. Our science progression document and an overview of the whole schools’ science topic coverage are shown below.

External links

We aim to inspire children, encouraging them to be inquisitive about the world, and develop a range of skills that are useful across their learning. Children are encouraged to find out about the wider world and our strong links with local science industries means we are able to offer them first-hand experiences through regular visitors.