At Thorpe Lea, we aim to teach a high-quality science curriculum that provides the foundations for understanding the world through biology, chemistry and physics. Science has changed our lives and is vital to the world's prosperity. Children will be taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science.
Our intention is for the children to develop a sense of excitement and curiosity about natural phenomena when learning about science. We encourage them to understand how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave, and analyse causes. It is important that from an early age the children are using the correct scientific language both orally and in written work so that this becomes a habit as they move through their academic career.
Science is taught weekly from Year 1 to Year 6 through the Snap Science scheme of work. In the foundation Stage, the children are provided with a range of exciting activities both indoor and outdoor that are closely linked to the modules that they will be covering as they move into KS1 an beyond.
Snap Science provides support to our KS1 and KS2 teachers with the planning and delivery of their Science lessons. It ensures that children cover the entire national curriculum during their time at Thorpe Lea. Our curriculum is designed so that certain topics will recur during a child's time at the school. This is done so that a foundation of understanding can be built, onto which further knowledge can be developed and grown. (More of this information is available in the attachments below where you can read about the progression of skills and see which topics are covered in which year group and when!)
We have also recently developed a partnership with the Unity Schools Trust who will be coming into the school to provide high quality lessons to the children that will allow our students to get hands on with scientific equipment usually only found in secondary schools and support them in bridging the gap between primary and secondary science.
Teaching and learning is monitored through learning walks, book looks, pupil voice through school council and both internal and external moderations.
Our teachers provide half termly assessments on the children based on their professional judgement that is closely monitored by the subject lead.
We hope that our partnership with the Unity Schools Trust will help to bridge the gap between primary and secondary science and will provide the children with strong foundations in science that they can push on from as they move into secondary education and beyond.