Science
In this section of the website, you will find information about our approach to teaching Science at Lumley Junior School.
Intent
In Key Stage Two, we use the National Curriculum for Science as the basis of our Science curriculum.
The National Curriculum for Science aims to ensure that all pupils:
- develop scientific knowledge and understanding of biology, chemistry and physics
- develop understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science through different types of enquiries that help them to answer questions about the world around them
- are equipped with the scientific knowledge required to understand the uses and implications of science, today and for the future.
We want our pupils to develop a sense of excitement and curiosity about natural phenomena. We provide pupils with a scientific, enquiry-based curriculum where there is a spread of different enquiry types across a range of topics and year groups. These are fair testing and comparative testing; observing over time; pattern seeking; identifying and classifying and research. We believe that it is important for children to discover the answers themselves, before a teacher consolidates and refines their knowledge at the end of the lesson. In Key Stage Two, ‘working scientifically’ is used as the backbone of Science and we encourage children to discuss how they have worked scientifically during every Science lesson, developing a shared understanding for the importance of working scientifically and scientific enquiry.
Knowledge and Key Skills Progression Grids:
SCIENCE – KS2 Knowledge and Key Skills – updated December 23
Implementation
Throughout Key Stage Two, Science is taught across eleven programmes of study:
- Animals (including humans)
- Rocks
- Forces
- Light
- Plants
- Sound
- Electricity
- Living Things and their Habitats
- Earth and Space
- States of Matter (Reversible and Irreversible Changes)
- Evolution and Inheritance
Weekly lessons are lively and interactive, enabling children to experiment and investigate using high quality resources and scientific equipment. Children record their findings and draw conclusions through discussion and analysis of results. Working scientifically is a fundamental skill, which is embedded across the curriculum throughout the year.
Lessons are adapted where necessary to meet the needs of pupils including those with special educational needs and disabilities.
Impact
By the end of Key Stage Two most children will:
Working Scientifically
- Plan different types of scientific enquiries to answer questions.
- Make careful observations.
- Take measurements, using a range of scientific equipment.
- Record data and results of increasing complexity using scientific diagrams and labels, classification keys, tables, scatter graphs, bar and line graphs.
- Use test results to make predictions to set up further comparative and fair tests.
- Report and present findings from enquiries.
- Identify scientific evidence that has been used to support or refute ideas or arguments.
Plants
- Identify and describe the functions of different parts of flowering plants.
- Explore the requirements of plants for life and growth.
- Investigate the way in which water is transported within plants.
- Explore the part that flowers play in the life cycle of flowering plants, including pollination, seed formation and seed dispersal.
Animals, including humans
- Identify that humans and some other animals have skeletons and muscles for support, protection and movement.
- Identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions.
- Construct and interpret a variety of food chains, identifying producers, predators and prey.
- Identify and name the main parts of the human circulatory system, and describe the functions of the heart, blood vessels and blood.
- Recognise the impact of diet, exercise, drugs and lifestyle on the way their bodies function.
- Describe the ways in which nutrients and water are transported within animals, including humans.
Living Things and their Habitats
- Describe the differences in the life cycles of a mammal, an amphibian, an insect and a bird.
- Describe the life process of reproduction in some plants and animals.
- Describe how living things are classified into broad groups according to common observable characteristics and based on similarities and differences.
- Give reasons for classifying plants and animals based on specific characteristics.
Forces
- Compare how things move on different surfaces.
- Notice that some forces need contact between two objects, but magnetic forces can act at a distance.
- Observe and predict how magnets attract or repel each other and attract some materials and not others.
- Compare and group together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of whether they are attracted to a magnet.
- Describe magnets as having two poles.
- Explain that unsupported objects fall towards the Earth because of the force of gravity.
- Identify the effects of air resistance, water resistance and friction, that act between moving surfaces.
Rocks
- Compare and group together different kinds of rocks.
- Describe how fossils are formed.
- Recognise that soils are made from rocks and organic matter.
Light
- Recognise that light from the sun can be dangerous and that there are ways to protect their eyes.
- Recognise that shadows are formed when the light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object and explain why shadows have the same shape as the objects that cast them.
- Find patterns in the way that the size of shadows change.
- Recognise that light appears to travel in straight lines and objects are seen because they give out or reflect light.
Sound
- Identify how sounds are made and that they get fainter as the distance from the sound source increases.
- Recognise that vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear.
- Find patterns between the pitch of a sound and features of the object that produced it.
- Find patterns between the volume of a sound and the strength of the vibrations that produced it.
Electricity
- Construct a simple series electrical circuit, identifying and naming its basic parts.
- Identify whether or not a lamp will light in a simple series circuit.
- Recognise that a switch opens and closes a circuit.
- Recognise some common conductors and insulators.
- Associate the brightness of a lamp or the volume of a buzzer with the number and voltage of cells used in the circuit.
- Use symbols when representing a simple circuit in a diagram.
Earth and Space
- Describe the movement of the Earth, and other planets, relative to the Sun in the solar system.
- Describe the movement of the Moon relative to the Earth.
- Describe the Sun, Earth and Moon as approximately spherical bodies.
- Use the idea of the Earth’s rotation to explain day / night and the apparent movement of the sun across the sky.
States of matter & Reversible and Irreversible change
- Compare and group materials together – solids, liquids or gases.
- Observe that some materials change state when they are heated or cooled, and measure / research the temperature at which this happens in degrees Celsius (°C).
- Identify the part played by evaporation and condensation in the water cycle and associate the rate of evaporation with temperature.
- Know that some materials will dissolve in liquid to form a solution, and describe how to recover a substance from a solution.
- Use knowledge of solids, liquids and gases to decide how mixtures may be separated.
- Demonstrate that dissolving, mixing and changes of state are reversible changes.
- Explain that some changes result in the formation of new materials, and that this kind of change is not usually reversible.
Evolution and Inheritance
- Recognise that living things have changed over time and that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago.
- Recognise that living things produce offspring of the same kind, but normally offspring vary and are not identical to their parents.
- Identify how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment in different ways and that adaptation may lead to evolution.
