Science

EYFS Development Matters

National Curriculum for Science

Science Curriculum Offer

Subject Intent

At St Edmund’s our Science curriculum nurtures children’s natural curiosity. Science enables children to explore and discover the world around them, confidently, so that they have a deeper understanding of the world we live in. Our exciting and stimulating lessons empower children to have practical and hands-on experiences which encourage and challenge their curiosity and questioning. Community involvement is an integral part of our curriculum, inviting families to celebrate learning new skills and sharing experiences. At St Edmund’s we want all children to communicate effectively, using their vocabulary and spoken skills, and work both as an independent thinker and collaboratively in Science to allow them to achieve to the best of their individual ability.

Here are some of the things we said about Science at St Edmund's:

"If you want to learn new things then Science is always there for you." "It helps us to learn and experiment." "It's very interesting." "It's fun because you learn new things."

EYFS

We have been learning about what happens in Autumn, by enjoying lots of Autumn related stories, such as, Shark in the Park on a Windy Day. We went on an Autumn walk, exploring Autumn objects too! We loved the spiky conker shells.

Key Stage One

Our topic in Year 1 and Year 2 this half term is Every day Materials. We started by recording our prior knowledge.

There was debris from a rocket crash in our classroom! We worked hard in teams and pairs to explore the materials, before sorting and classifying the objects into the correct materials.

Then we have been looking at manipulating materials . We had great fun trying to twist, bend, stretch and squeeze. What a great investigation!

Lower Key Stage Two

Our Science topic this half term is 'Rocks'. We began by examining a range of different chocolate bars and then identified which rock properties they represented. We drew some beautiful cross-sections of the bars to illustrate the different properties.

We then examined a selection of rocks and discussed their properties. Working in groups, we used Venn and Carroll diagrams to sort the rocks according to different criteria.

Upper Key Stage Two

Our topic this half term is Evolution and Inheritance.

To start, we made a huge timeline across the playground to demonstrate how long humans have been on Earth in relation to the first signs of life. We learned that fossils tell us about the species that lived 100,000s of years before us. Then we had a go at making fossil casts of shells.

We have since then looked at how Darwin's finches differed in adaptions, using different 'beaks' to find out which would be the best adaption for survival with the chosen food source.

We have looked at how peppered moths have evolved over time due to natural selection, which happens in response to a change in environment, or competition between species.

Finally, we collected class data on our choices between smarties or raisins... using our results we discussed which 'species' would survive longer, or how a 'species' might change over time based on our results.