Science

In Key Stage 1, children will explore and ask questions about the world around them.
The topics covered are: Animals including humans, Plants, Seasonal changes and Everyday materials and their uses.
Children will learn to identify features and how to sort and group things. They will observe changes over time and, with help, begin to observe patterns and relationships.
Children will find information out from people and secondary sources such as books and the internet.
They will experience different types of scientific enquiries, including practical activities involving simple measurements and equipment. Children will collect data and record it in different ways. They will discuss what they have found out and how they found it out using simple scientific language.

In Key Stage 2, children continue to explore and investigate scientifically. The curriculum is clearly divided into the main 3 areas of biology, chemistry and physics. The topics covered include;

• Plants (learning about flowering plants, plant structures and what is required for plant growth)
• Animals, including humans (Nutrition, skeletons, muscles, life cycles of animals and plants)
• Rocks (types of rocks, soil types)
• Light (reflection, properties of light and shadows)
• Forces and magnets (friction, gravity, magnetic poles and magnetic fields)
• Living things and their habitats (focussing on classifying animals, different types of environments)
• States of matter (solids, liquids and gases)
• Sound (how sound travels, different sounds and pitch)
• Electricity (creating simple electric circuits and understanding the principles of electric currents)
• Properties and changes of materials (such as dissolving, absorption, melting, boiling etc..)
• Evolution and inheritance (looking at the work of Darwin and what evidence there is for evolution in animals and plants). 

As the children move from lower Key Stage 2 (years 3 and 4) to Upper Key Stage 2 (Years 5 and 6) there is more of an emphasis on scientific thinking, planning experiments and using evidence to confirm or dismiss a scientific theory. Children learn the basics of hypothesis, experimentation and conclusion.