Science

Our science curriculum is enquiry based, fully inclusive and meets the needs of all learners, starting from building strong foundations in our EYFS, supporting and challenging them on their journey to being secondary ready, and ultimately ensuring that they are equipped with the cultural capital, skills and knowledge they need to succeed in the future.

Meet our Science Coordinators

Mrs G Whittaker

Mrs G Whittaker
Miss C Beech

Miss C Beech

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Meet our Science Ambassadors

Ebony-Grace, Oliver, Harvie, Amber-Rose, Alfie & Penny

Science Intent

At Horizon Academy Trust, we encourage children to be inquisitive throughout their time at our schools and beyond. The Science curriculum fosters a healthy curiosity in children about our universe and promotes respect for the living and non-living. We believe science encompasses the acquisition of knowledge, concepts, skills, and positive attitudes.

Throughout the programmes of study, the children will acquire and develop the key knowledge that leaders have identified within each unit and across each year group. The key knowledge identified by each year group is underpinned by the Early Years and national curriculum and builds towards identified phase ‘end points.’ Alongside knowledge, scientific skills are also mapped for each year group and are progressive throughout the school. These too ensure systematic progression to identified end points which are in accordance with the Working Scientifically skills expectations of the national curriculum.

The curriculum is designed to ensure that children can develop scientifically through practical experiences, using equipment, conducting experiments, building arguments, and explaining concepts confidently. Biggin Hill’s approach to science takes account of our own context, ensuring access to people with specialist expertise and places of scientific interest as part of the commitment to learning outside of the classroom. Curiosity and exploration begins in our EYFS and is mapped out effectively to progress through KS1 and KS2.

Cross curricular opportunities are also identified, mapped, and planned to ensure contextual relevance. Children are encouraged to ask questions and be curious about their surroundings and a love of science is nurtured through a whole school ethos and a varied science curriculum. Theme and experience days are planned to further foster a curiosity and enquiring mind in all our children.

STEM Intent

Our vision for STEM is to provide students with a learning environment conducive to exploring science, technology, engineering and maths through engaging learning experiences within the classroom. Children need to be exposed to a wide variety of skills and concepts. We need to provide students with an experiential education that excites, engages, and enriches children.

STEM is important at Biggin Hill Academy because it’s part of our everyday life. Science is everywhere in the world around us. Technology is continuously expanding into every aspect of our lives. Engineering is the basic designs of roads and bridges but also tackles the challenges of changing global weather and environmentally-friendly changes to our home. Mathematics is in every occupation and every activity we do in our lives. By exposing our students to STEM and giving them opportunities to explore STEM-related concepts, they will develop a passion for it and hopefully pursue a job in a STEM field.

Early Learning Goals

Communication and Language

Children at the expected level of development will:

Make comments about what they have heard and ask questions to clarify their understanding

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Children at the expected level of development will:

Manage their own basic hygiene and personal needs, including dressing, going to the toilet and understanding the importance of healthy food choices

Understanding the World

Children at the expected level of development will:

Explore the natural world around them, making observations and drawing pictures of animals and plants
Know some similarities and differences between the natural world around them and contrasting environments, drawing on their experiences and what has been read in class
Understand some important processes and changes in the natural world around them, including the seasons and changing states of matter

Science National Curriculum Aims

In line with the Science Programmes of Study KS1 and KS2 the school aims to ensure that all pupils:

Develop scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics.
Develop understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science through different types of science enquiries that help them to answer scientific questions about the world around them.
Are equipped with the scientific knowledge they require to understand the uses and implications of science, today and for the future

Working Scientifically requires:

Questioning
Scientific enquiry – observing changes, finding patterns, grouping and classifying, fair testing and researching using secondary sources
Drawing conclusions based on data and observations
Using evidence to justify ideas
Using scientific knowledge to explain findings.

For further information regarding the National Curriculum for Science, please click here.

Science Implementation

All teachers create a positive attitude to science learning within their classrooms and reinforce an expectation that all pupils can achieve ambitious standards in science.

Units of work build progressively on existing knowledge which is checked at the beginning of each unit. This ensures that teaching is informed by the children’s starting points and that it takes account of pupil voice, incorporating children’s interests.

Within each unit problem solving opportunities are built in allowing children to apply their knowledge and find out answers for themselves. Children are encouraged to ask their own questions and be given opportunities to use their scientific skills and research to discover the answers. This curiosity is celebrated within the classroom. Planning involves teachers creating engaging lessons, often involving high-quality resources to aid understanding of conceptual knowledge. Teachers use precise questioning in class to test conceptual knowledge and skills and assess pupils regularly to identify those children with gaps in learning, so that all pupils keep up. Tasks are selected and designed to provide appropriate challenge to all learners, in line with each school’s commitment to inclusion.

Working Scientific skills are embedded into lessons to ensure that skills are systematically developed throughout the children’s school career and new vocabulary and challenging concepts are introduced through direct teaching. This is mapped across EYFS, KS1 and KS2 to ensure these skills build as children move through school.

When possible, children are offered a wide range of extra-curricular activities, visits, trips, and visitors to complement and broaden the curriculum. These are purposeful and link with the knowledge being taught in class.

Regular events, such as Science Week or project days, such as Nature Day, allow all pupils to come off-timetable, to provide broader provision and the acquisition and application of knowledge and skills. These events often involve families and the wider community.

At the end of each unit, key knowledge is reviewed by the children and rigorously checked by the teacher and consolidated, as necessary.

Rationale for sequencing in Science

The Science curriculum at Horizon is sequenced so that children develop knowledge and skills across four main concepts: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Scientific Enquiry. Units of learning have been chosen based on the National Curriculum. These units sequentially build knowledge within each of the strands. For example, all year groups study the unit ‘Animals, including humans,’ but this is sequenced so that layers of understanding build as children progress through school, ensuring by the end of KS2 children have a detailed knowledge and understanding of some complex processes such as the digestive and circulatory system.

Each unit focuses on a specific aspect of scientific enquiry, these are identified as: Pattern Seeking, Comparative and Fair Testing, Observing Over Time, Research Using Secondary Sources or Identifying, Classifying and Grouping. This ensures that children develop a balanced diet of enquiry skills as they progress through school.

Each unit is also developed through a ‘Big Investigation Question.’ These help to develop a natural curiosity in our children allowing them to investigate problems and learn how science works. Investigation questions make learning ‘real’ and ensures children understand why science matters in the world, considering a range of issues which will impact on their lives in the future.