“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
Psalm 19:1
Teaching science at St Clare’s highlights the beauty of God’s creation, it allows our children to explore and understand the natural world and the wonders of God’s handiwork.
Catholic Social Teaching is integral to our whole curriculum. Here are some examples of where this can be seen in Science:
Dignity of the Human Person
We believe in the dignity of the individual: that God created human in His own image. Therefore, we should take care of our God-given bodies. Pupils learn about this in all year groups.
Dignity of Work
We are all individuals and have our own God given talents and qualities. In Science we support and challenge every pupil to achieve their potential and encourage pupils to work together to support one another in their learning.
Family and Community
We strive to support and strengthen our school community. We hold Science events throughout the year as a school community to promote and celebrate learning in Science, such as British Science Week.
Stewardship of God’s Creation
We believe in St. Clare’s that God has entrusted us with the responsibility to look after the God-created Earth and every living thing in it. In Science, from Nursery to Year 6, the children learn about the huge variety of plants and animals in God’s creation. They also study the many different habitats God created throughout the world and how humans can impact these (Year 4).
The Option for the Poor and Vulnerable
Through fostering a love of science, we educate the scientists of the future whose research might contribute to healing the sick and the advancement of public health. In St. Clare’s we promote the work of scientists who work to create a better world for all.
Intent
At St Clare’s Catholic Primary School we believe that a high quality science education provides the foundations for understanding the world through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics. Science has changed our lives and is vital to the world’s future prosperity, and all pupils should be taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science. Through building up a body of key foundational knowledge and concepts, pupils should be encouraged to recognise the power of rational explanation and develop a sense of excitement and curiosity about natural world. They should be encouraged to understand how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave, and analyse causes.
Science in our school is about developing children’s ideas and ways of working that enable them to make sense of the world in which they live through investigation, as well as using and applying process skills. The staff at St Clare’s Catholic Primary School ensure that all children are exposed to high quality teaching and learning experiences, which allow children to explore their outdoor environment and locality, thus developing their scientific enquiry and investigative skills. The Science curriculum develops learning and results in the acquisition of knowledge and understanding not only of the topic they are studying, but of the world around them. We intend to provide all children regardless of ethnic origin, gender, class, aptitude or disability, with a broad and balanced science curriculum.
Implementation
In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in science, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. Planning for science is a process in which all teachers are involved to ensure that the school gives full coverage of, ‘The National Curriculum programmes of study for Science 2014’ and, ‘Understanding of the World’ in the Early Years Foundation Stage. Science teaching at St Clare’s Catholic Primary School involves adapting and extending the curriculum to match all pupils’ needs. Where possible, Science is linked to class topics. Science is taught as discrete units and lessons where needed to ensure coverage.
At the end of each lesson children complete a class mind-map on the Smartboard, using words and pictures to enhance their learning. At the beginning of the next lesson, this slide will be used to revisit the previous knowledge and secure concepts learned.
We have also developed scientific tasks, which are completed both at the beginning (pre-learning task) and end (post-learning task) of a topic in order to show clear progression and children’s new found knowledge and understanding. These tasks also enable the children to articulate scientific concepts clearly and precisely, assisting them in making their thinking clear, both to themselves and others.
Teachers plan to suit their children’s interests, current events, their own teaching style, the use of any support staff and the resources available. We ensure that all children are provided with rich learning experiences that aim to:
· Prepare our children for life in an increasingly scientific and technological world today and in the future.
· Help our children acquire a growing understanding of the nature, processes and methods of scientific ideas.
· Help develop and extend our children’s scientific concept of their world.
· Build on our children’s natural curiosity and developing a scientific approach to problems.
· Build on our children’s natural curiosity and developing a scientific approach to problems.
· Encouraging open-mindedness, self-assessment, perseverance and developing the skills of investigation – including: observing, measuring, predicting, hypothesising, experimenting, communicating, interpreting, explaining and evaluating.
· Develop the use of scientific language, recording and techniques
· Develop the use of computing in investigating and recording. Children will access resources to acquire learning through Science equipment, digital technology, practical experiences and photographs.
· Make links between science and other subjects through cross curricular links.
· Build on prior knowledge and link ideas together, enabling them to question and become enquiry based learners.
· Clear and comprehensive scheme of work in line with the National Curriculum. With teaching and Learning showing progression across all key stages within the strands of Science.
· Develop the children’s topical learning through Educational Visits were applicable.
· Learn and revisit the British Values and PSHE for the importance of our world and how it should be treated.
Impact
The impact and measure of this is to ensure children not only acquire the appropriate age related knowledge linked to the science curriculum, but also skills which equip them to progress from their starting points, and within their everyday lives.
All children will have:
· A wider variety of skills linked to both scientific knowledge and understanding, and scientific enquiry/investigative skills.
· Children will be able to question ideas and reflect on knowledge.
· Children will be able to explain the process they have taken and be able to reason scientifically.
· Children will work collaboratively and practically to investigate and experiment
· A richer vocabulary which will enable to articulate their understanding of taught concepts.
· High aspirations, which will see them through to further study, work and a successful adult life.
Key Subject Documents
Science Chatter
Classification
07-01-2025
Y6 have been using the working wall, text books, their own knowledge and classification keys to group and classify living things.
Science (filtering)
19-12-2024
Year 5 enjoyed taking part in a science investigation into how we can seperate solids and liquids using filtering.
Reflecting light
01-12-2024
Y6 carried out some interesting investigations to see how light is reflected off different surfaces.
Thinking about sugar
22-11-2024
Y6 took part in a live session today led by the school health team, they were very engaged and shocked at what they learned! They explored how much hidden sugar is in food and drinks. They then learned how to be sugar detectives.
Science learning walk
14-11-2024
We went on a learning walk of our school grounds to see what leaves, flowers and trees we could see.
Nursery autumn walk 🍁🍂
06-11-2024
Nursery class found lots of autumn treasures on their walk yesterday morning. We found conkers, acorns, sticks and lots of different coloured and sized leaves.
Thermal insulators
02-10-2024
Year 5 enjoyed carrying out an investigation into which material is the best thermal insulator.
Classification
01-10-2024
Year 4 worked together to find out the characteristics of the different vertebrate groups
Home made digestive system
08-07-2024
year 4 used a variety of readily available resources to create a simulation of what happens in the digestive system. It was very messy!
Sefton Park Palm House
03-07-2024
Y6 had a fantastic morning at the Palm House learning all about the plants and history of this magnificent glass house.
Sefton Park Palm House visit
02-07-2024
Year 5 had a wonderful morning at the Palm House. They took part in art and craft activities. They also learnt about the history of the beautiful structure and about some of the fabulous plants which can be found there.
Science
27-06-2024
As part our our forces topic,year 5 created parachutes and carried out an investigation into how air resistance affects falling objects.
Health and fitness week
10-06-2024
Year 4 began the day with walking a mile around the school. It set us up well for the beginning of our Health and fitness week.
Talking to Downing Street!
21-05-2024
Year 2 are very excited to have had a response from 10 Downing Street following our persuasive letters about stopping plastic pollution.
🦋 Butterflies 🦋
21-05-2024
This morning in Nursery we said goodbye to our butterflies. We have thoroughly enjoyed watching them grow from tiny hungry caterpillars to beautiful butterflies. We managed to hold one of the butterflies before it flew away. What an exciting morning!
Observational Enquiry
21-05-2024
Today we checked how our sunflowers have grown (or not!) We discussed how the amount of water we gave the plants effected their growth.
Changing Sound
15-05-2024
Year 4 investigated how sound was made using tuning forks, water elastic bands and rice on a drum! They discovered that sound is caused by an object vibrating.
Year 5 carried out an air resistance investigation using self- made parachutes. Back to the drawing board.
03-05-2024
Cash for kids walk in Year 3! Today we walked around our school perimeter three times and altogether walked a massive 20,000 steps! Well done Year 3 👏
02-05-2024
Year 5 designed and created their own parachutes in preparation for their air resistance experiment.
30-04-2024
British Science Week
23-03-2024
During British Science Week Year 6 took part in lots of investigations linked to the theme of ‘time’. We looked at how genetic characteristics are passed down over time and also how plants and animals change over time through natural selection and variation such as the Peppered Moth. How many of our moths can you spot in the first picture?!
Charles Darwin
21-03-2024
Year 6 held an investigation today to help them to understand how different finches on the Galapagos islands have adapted to their environments through natural selection. We discovered that certain ‘beaks’ were adapted to eating certain ‘seeds’.
Science week
19-03-2024
This week we looked at the different seasons and what months are in those seasons. We also did an experiment to how far our germs can spread when we sneeze and cough if we dont cover them up.
Science week at St Clare’s!
15-03-2024
This week in Year 3, we have taken part in various science experiments. We started with Get Set Jellies and then moved on to Friction fun. Jelly sets over time but we found out that different methods for preparing the jelly, can slow the process down. We used, peaches, mangos and pineapples as our additional foods in the jelly. We then took part in a friction experiment using long grain rice, a pencil and a water bottle. The aim was to see whether the bottle filled with rice could be lifted off the surface area by just holding the pencil. We were amazed at the outcomes and thoroughly enjoyed our experiments!
Nursery – Shadows!
14-03-2024
Science Week: Nursery Class had lots of fun exploring shadows using animal puppets, a white sheet and torches. When we have some sunshine we are going to see if we can find our own shadows!
Investigating plants outdoors
07-03-2024
Instead of throwing away the daffodils from our observational drawings we took them outside and took a close look inside the flowers and stems using our magnifying glasses and tweezers.
Nursery have been busy planting sunflower seeds.
07-03-2024
This half term our topic is ‘Sunshine and Sunflowers’. We sequenced cards showing the life cycle of a sunflower and planted our own sunflower seeds. We are very excited to see them starting to grow.
Looking for signs of Spring around our school
06-03-2024
In Reception class we went on a Spring walk and used our senses to investigate signs of Spring around us.
Electricity
25-02-2024
Year 4 investigated which materials conducted electricity and made the bulb light. We discovered that metal is a good conductor, but plastic, paper, wood and fabric are not.
Living things
25-02-2024
We sorted animals into a criteria we decided, then we learned that each animal is classified according to its characteristics.
Nursery class enjoyed a visit from Acorn Farm
22-02-2024
Nursery class had an exciting morning. We helped Farmer Gregg and Farmer Marie feed the animals their breakfast. We also stroked the animals and some children felt brave enough to hold a rat. Well done everyone.
A special Palm House visitor
21-02-2024
Year 6 were visited today by Kate from the Palm House. Kate spoke about her role within the Palm House. She also told the children about the species of plants and animals that call the Palm House their home. Y6 were very excited to learn about the poisonous plants contained within the glass house. They were also very interested to learn that there is a statue commemorating Carl Linnaeus within the Palm House grounds! Kate also told the children about the history of the Palm House and how it was protected during World War Two. The children finished their session by building an origami bird house.
Light travels in straight lines
27-11-2023
Today Y6 explored how light travels. They learned that light travels in straight lines. To change the direction of the light they used reflective surfaces.
Y6 Science – Electricity
27-10-2023
During this topic we have learned about the symbols used to draw electrical circuits. We have created our own circuits and have investigated how to make a bulb brighter and a buzzer louder.
