Our Aims

At Holy Family, we encourage children to be inquisitive throughout their time at our school and beyond. The Science curriculum fosters a healthy curiosity in children about our universe and promotes respect for the living and non-living. We believe science encompasses the acquisition of knowledge, concepts, skills and positive attitudes. Throughout the programmes of study, the children will acquire, develop and build upon the key knowledge that has been identified within each unit and across each year group, as well as the application of scientific skills. We ensure that the Working Scientifically skills are built-on and developed throughout children’s time at our school so that they can apply their knowledge of science when using equipment, conducting experiments, building arguments and explaining concepts confidently and continue to ask questions and be curious about their surroundings.

How We Do This

Teachers create a positive attitude to science learning within their classrooms and reinforce an expectation that all children are capable of achieving high standards in science. Our whole school approach to the teaching and learning of science involves the following;

• Science will be taught in planned and arranged topic blocks by the class teacher. This is a strategy to enable the achievement of a greater depth of knowledge, through building on previously learnt knowledge.
• Knowledge organisers and low-stakes mini quizzes are used to consolidate prior learning and lead to acquisition and retention of new knowledge.
• Through our planning, we involve problem solving opportunities that allow children to find out for themselves. Children are encouraged to ask their own questions and be given opportunities to use their scientific skills and research to discover the answers. This curiosity is celebrated within the classroom. Planning involves teachers creating engaging lessons, often involving high-quality resources to aid understanding of conceptual knowledge. Teachers use precise questioning in class to test conceptual knowledge and skills, and assess children regularly to identify those children with gaps in learning, so that all children keep up.
• We build upon the learning and skill development of the previous years. As the children’s knowledge and understanding increases, and they become more proficient in selecting, using scientific equipment, collating and interpreting results, they become increasingly confident in their growing ability to come to conclusions based on real evidence.
• Working Scientifically skills are embedded into, and highlighted within, lessons to ensure these skills are being developed throughout the children’s school career and new vocabulary and challenging concepts are introduced through direct teaching. This is developed through the years, in-keeping with the topics.
• Teachers demonstrate how to use scientific equipment, and the various Working Scientifically skills in order to embed scientific understanding. Teachers find opportunities to develop children’s understanding of their surroundings by accessing outdoor learning and workshops with experts.
• Children are offered a wide range of extra-curricular activities, visits, trips and visitors to complement and broaden the curriculum. These are purposeful and link with the knowledge being taught in class.
• Regular events, such as Science Week or project days, such as RSPB birdwatch, allow all pupils access to broader provision and the acquisition and application of knowledge and skills. Where possible, these events involve families and the wider community.

What This Looks Like

The successful approach at Holy Family results in a fun, engaging, high-quality science education, that provides children with the foundations and knowledge for understanding the world. Our engagement with the local environment ensures that children learn through varied and first hand experiences of the world around them. Frequent, continuous and progressive learning outside the classroom is embedded throughout the science curriculum. Through various workshops, trips and interactions with experts and local charities, children have the understanding that science has changed our lives and that it is vital to the world’s future prosperity. Science capital is embedded and built upon through learning about the possibilities for careers in science. This ensure that children are aware of positive role models within the field of science from the immediate and wider local community. From this exposure to a range of different scientists from various backgrounds, all children feel they are scientists and capable of achieving. Children at Holy Family overwhelmingly enjoy science and this results in motivated learners with sound scientific understanding.

CST in the Science Curriculum

All of God’s creation is sacred and reflects something of who God is. Caring for this earth is part of what it is to be a Christian. The Catholic Church has a long tradition of teaching about the God-centeredness of the earth, which clearly focuses on the responsibility all people have for caring for creation.

The golden thread of ‘Care of God’s Creation’ runs through each science unit which links to the CST principles of:

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• The Common Good

• Stewardship

This ensures children develop their environmental awareness and understanding of their role in protecting our God given planet.

What does Scripture say?

 ‘Humans are commanded to care for God’s creation.’ Genesis 2:15

 ‘Creation proclaims the glory of God.’ Daniel 3:56-82

 ‘God loves and cares for all creation.’ Matthew 6:25-34

 ‘Creation and all created things are good because they are created by God.’ 1 Corinthians 10:26

What does the Church say?

Charity in Truth: Caritas in Veritate –

‘The environment is God’s gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole…Our duties towards the environment are linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in himself and in relation to others.’

What does Pope Francis say?

“Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the property of only a few: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude.”

Laudato Si (24th May 2015) –

‘A scientific consensus says climate change is real and caused at least in part by human activity. A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. In recent decades, this warming has been accompanied by a constant rise in the sea level and, it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events, even if a scientifically determinable cause cannot be assigned to each particular phenomenon.’

Loving God,

We believe that the world is for everyone.

We thank you for the gift of Creation.

Help us to take care of the planet and all people who live on it.

Lord in your mercy

Hear our prayer

PSQM - Primary Science Quality Mark

The PSQM team have worked incredibly hard to raise the profile of science throughout Holy Family. This hard work culminated in the Primary Science Quality Mark being awarded.

We follow the 2014 National curriculum for Science.

Science Principles at Holy Family:

Science Topics: Knowledge Progression

Pupils study one unit of Science every half term and these units build on each other year on year.

The science curriculum is based on three disciplines and the following themes:

Sc1 Scientific enquiry

Sc2 Life processes and living things (Biology)

Sc3 Materials and their properties (Chemistry)

Sc4 Physical processes (Physics)

 

Early Years Foundation Stage

In Foundation Stage science is taught through the strand ‘Knowledge and Understanding of the World’.  We provide an In the Moment curriculum that allows children to be creative and find things out for themselves.  They take part in different methods of discovery and begin to understand the world around them.  They develop skills of discussion, observation, and critical thinking.

Year 1

In our 'In the Moment' approach to learning, we see Science as being all around us every day. Most of the questions children ask & the observations they may of the world around them, have a basis in Science. We encourage this questioning and experimenting as it is the starting point and the first building block in being a scientist. 

Year 2

Plants

• Observe and describe how seeds and bulbs grow into mature plants.
• Find out how we should plant seeds
• Find out and describe how plants need water, light and a suitable temperature to grow and stay healthy.
• To make an accurate record of the changes that happen to our seeds.
• Perform simple fair tests.
• Gather and record data in order to answer questions.

Animals including humans

• Notice that animals, including humans, have offspring which grow into adults
• Discover how we change as we grow into adults
• Find out about and describe the basic needs of animals, including humans, for survival (water, food and air)
• Describe the importance for humans of exercise, eating the right amounts of different types of food, and hygiene
• Perform simple tests

All living things and their habitats

• Explore and compare the differences between things that are living, dead, and things that have never been alive.
• Identify that most living things live in habitats to which they are suited and describe how different habitats provide for the basic needs of different kinds of animals and plants, and how they depend on each other.
• Identify and name a variety of plants and animals in their habitats, including micro-habitats.
• Describe how animals obtain their food from plants and other animals, using the idea of a simple food chain, and identify and name different sources of food.

Uses of every day materials

• Identify and compare the uses of a variety of everyday materials, including wood, metal, plastic, glass, brick, rock, paper and cardboard
• Find out how the shapes of solid objects made from some materials can be changed by squashing, bending, twisting and stretching
• Test different materials to find out which is the best material for dungarees/umbrella/window, etc.
• Experiment with changing materials
• Carry out simple comparative tests

Working scientifically is a continuous area of study in the science curriculum.  Throughout all units, children will be covering these learning objectives:

Working scientifically

• Ask simple questions and recognise that they can be answered in different ways
• Observing closely, using simple equipment
• Perform simple tests
• Identify and Classify
• Use their observations and ideas to suggest answers to questions
• Gather and record data to help in answering questions

Year 3

Plants

• Identify and describe the functions of different parts of flowering plants: roots, stem, leaves and flowers
• Explore the requirements of plants for life and growth (air, light, water, nutrients from soil, and room to grow) and how they vary from plant to plant
• 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
• Explore the part flowers play in the life cycle of flowering plants, including pollination, seed formation and seed dispersal
• Recording findings using simple scientific language, drawings, labelled diagrams, keys, bar charts, and tables

Animals including humans

• Identify that animals, including humans, need the right types and amount of nutrition, and that they cannot make their own food; they get nutrition from what they eat
• Identify that humans and some animals have skeletons and muscles for support, protection and movement
• Ask relevant questions and use different types of scientific enquiries to answer them
• Gather, record, classify and present data in a variety of ways to help in answering questions
• Use secondary sources of information.

Rocks

• Compare and group together different kinds of rocks on the basis of their appearance and simple physical properties
• Describe in simple terms how fossils are formed when things that have lived are trapped within rock
• Recognise that soils are made from rocks and organic matter
• To recognise where and how rocks are used and explain how their properties make them suitable for their purpose
• Gather, record, classify and present data in a variety of ways to help in answer questions
• Use secondary sources of information

Forces and Magnets

• 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 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, and identify some magnetic materials
• Describe magnets as having two poles
• Predict whether two magnets will attract or repel each other, depending on which poles are facing

Light

• Recognise that they need light in order to see things and that dark is the absence of light
• Notice that light is reflected from surfaces
• 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 a solid object
• Find patterns in the way that the size of shadows change

‘Working scientifically’ is the continuous area of study in the science curriculum.  Throughout all units, children will be covering the following objectives:

• Asking relevant questions and using different types of scientific enquiries to answer them
• Setting up simple practical enquiries, comparative and fair tests
• Making systematic and careful observations and, where appropriate, taking accurate measurements using standard units, using a range of equipment, including thermometers and data loggers
• Gathering, recording, classifying and presenting data in a variety of ways to help in answering questions
• Recording findings using simple scientific language, drawings, labelled diagrams, keys, bar charts and tables
• Reporting on findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations, displays or presentations of results and conclusions
• Using results to draw simple conclusions, make predictions for new values, suggest improvements and raise further questions
• Identifying differences, similarities or changes related to simple scientific ideas and processes
• Using straightforward scientific evidence to answer questions or to support their findings

Year 4

Living things and their habitat

• Recognise that living things can be grouped in a variety of ways
• Explore and use classification keys to help group, identify and name a variety of living things in their local and wider environment
• Recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers to living things
• Gather, record, classify and present data in a variety of ways to help in answering questions
• Identifying differences, similarities or changes related to simple scientific ideas and processes
• Use straightforward scientific evidence to answer questions or to support their findings

Animals including humans

• Describe the simple functions of the basic parts of the digestive system in humans
• 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
• Set up simple practical enquiries, comparative and fair tests
• Ask relevant questions and use different types of scientific enquiries to answer them
• Report on findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations, displays or presentations of results and conclusions

States of matter

• Compare and group materials together, according to whether they are solids, liquids or gases
• Observe that some materials change state when they are heated or cooled, and measure or research the temperature at which this happens in degrees Celsius
• Identify the part played by evaporation and condensation in the water cycle and associate the rate of evaporation with temperature
• Use results to draw simple conclusions, make predictions for new values, suggest improvements and raise further questions
• Identify differences, similarities or changes related to simple scientific ideas and processes
• Ask relevant questions and use different types of scientific enquiries to answer them

Electricity

• Identify common appliances that run on electricity
• Construct a simple series electrical circuit, identifying and naming its basic parts, including cells, wires, bulbs, switches and buzzers
• Identify whether or not a lamp will light in a simple series circuit, based on whether or not the lamp is part of a complete loop with a battery
• Recognise that a switch opens and closes a circuit and associate this with whether or not a lamp lights in a simple series circuit
• Recognise some common conductors and insulators and associate metals with being good conductors
• Use results to draw simple conclusions, make predictions for new values, suggest improvements and raise further questions

Sound

• Identify how sounds are made, associating some of them with something vibrating
• 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
• Recognise that sounds get fainter as the distance from the sound source increases
• Set up simple practical enquiries, comparative and fair tests

‘Working scientifically’ is the continuous area of study in the science curriculum.  Throughout all units, children will be covering the following objectives:

• Asking relevant questions and using different types of scientific enquiries to answer them
• Setting up simple practical enquiries, comparative and fair tests
• Making systematic and careful observations and, where appropriate, taking accurate measurements using standard units, using a range of equipment, including thermometers and data loggers
• Gathering, recording, classifying and presenting data in a variety of ways to help in answering questions
• Recording findings using simple scientific language, drawings, labelled diagrams, keys, bar charts and tables
• Reporting on findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations, displays or presentations of results and conclusions
• Using results to draw simple conclusions, make predictions for new values, suggest improvements and raise further questions
• Identifying differences, similarities or changes related to simple scientific ideas and processes
• Using straightforward scientific evidence to answer questions or to support their findings

Year 5

Living things and their habitats

• Learn about the life cycle of a mammal, an amphibian, an insect and a bird
• Learn about the life cycle of an amphibian
• Learn about the life cycle of an insect and a bird
• Learn what makes a successful life cycle
• Describe the life processes of reproduction in some plants and animals
• Describe the changes as humans develop from birth to old age

Properties and changes of materials

• Compare and group together everyday materials based on evidence from comparative and fair tests, including their hardness, solubility, transparency, conductivity (electrical and thermal), and response to magnets
• Understand 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 might be separated, including through filtering, sieving and evaporating
• Give reasons, based on evidence from comparative and fair tests, for the particular uses of everyday materials, including metals, wood and plastic
• 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, including changes associated with burning and the action of acid on bicarbonate of soda

Earth and Space

• Describe the movement of the Earth, and other plants, 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 and night and the apparent movement of the sun across the sky
• Use simple models to describe scientific ideas
• Identify scientific evidence that has been used to support or refute ideas or arguments

Forces

• Explain that unsupported objects fall towards the Earth because of the force of gravity acting between the Earth and the falling object
• Identify the effects of air resistance, water resistance and friction, that act between moving surfaces
• Recognise that some mechanisms, including levers, pulleys and gears, allow a smaller force to have a greater effect
• Plan different types of scientific enquiries to answer questions, including recognising and controlling variables where necessary
• Use test results to make predictions to set up further comparative and fair tests

‘Working scientifically’ is the continuous area of study in the science curriculum.  Throughout all units, children will be covering the following objectives:

• Asking relevant questions and using different types of scientific enquiries to answer them
• Setting up simple practical enquiries, comparative and fair tests
• Making systematic and careful observations and, where appropriate, taking accurate measurements using standard units, using a range of equipment, including thermometers and data loggers
• Gathering, recording, classifying and presenting data in a variety of ways to help in answering questions
• Recording findings using simple scientific language, drawings, labelled diagrams, keys, bar charts and tables
• Reporting on findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations, displays or presentations of results and conclusions
• Using results to draw simple conclusions, make predictions for new values, suggest improvements and raise further questions
• Identifying differences, similarities or changes related to simple scientific ideas and processes
• Using straightforward scientific evidence to answer questions or to support their findings

Year 6

Animals including humans/Living things and their habitats

• Describe how living things are classified into broad groups according to common observable characteristics and based on similarities and differences, including micro-organisms, plants and animals
• Give reasons for classifying plants and animals based on specific characteristics
• Identify and name the main parts of the human circulatory system, and explain 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
• Plan different types of scientific enquiries to answer questions, including recognising and controlling variables where necessary

Evolution

• 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
• Suggest how an animal’s features and behaviour help it to survive
• Identify how animals and plans are adapted to suit their environment in different ways and that adaptation may lead to evolution
• Give reasons why changes to an environment could affect the survival chances of an animal

Light

• Understand that light appears to travel in straight lines
• Use the idea that light travels in straight lines to explain that objects are seen because they give out or reflect light into the eye
• Explain that we see things because light travels from light sources to our eyes or from light sources to objects and then to our eyes
• Use the idea that light travels in straight lines to explain why shadows have the same shape as the objects that cast them, and to predict the size of shadows when the position of the light source changes.
• Use simple models to describe scientific ideas
• Report and present findings from enquiries, including conclusions, causal relationships and explanations of results, in oral and written forms such as displays and other presentations

Electricity

• Associate the brightness of a lamp or the volume of a buzzer with the number and voltage of cells used in the circuit
• Compare and give reasons for variations in how components function, including the brightness of bulbs, loudness of buzzers and the on/off position of switches
• Use recognised symbols when representing a simple circuit in a diagram
• Use test results to make predictions to set up further comparative and fair tests
• Using simple models to describe scientific ideas

‘Working scientifically’ is the continuous area of study in the science curriculum.  Throughout all units, children will be covering the following objectives:

• Asking relevant questions and using different types of scientific enquiries to answer them
• Setting up simple practical enquiries, comparative and fair tests
• Making systematic and careful observations and, where appropriate, taking accurate measurements using standard units, using a range of equipment, including thermometers and data loggers
• Gathering, recording, classifying and presenting data in a variety of ways to help in answering questions
• Recording findings using simple scientific language, drawings, labelled diagrams, keys, bar charts and tables
• Reporting on findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations, displays or presentations of results and conclusions
• Using results to draw simple conclusions, make predictions for new values, suggest improvements and raise further questions
• Identifying differences, similarities or changes related to simple scientific ideas and processes
• Using straightforward scientific evidence to answer questions or to support their findings

THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM

The children in year 6 had a fantastic few days discovering the heart and its functions. They used heart rate monitors to measure their heart rate before and after exercise. They made blood, including white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets and plasma.

They also used a fantastic ‘Virtual’ T-Shirt to view inside their bodies and watch their heart beating.....children and staff were fascinated!!! ❤️❤️❤️

SCIENCE - Classification 🔎

The children had great fun today working on classifying sweets. Their had to use their science knowledge to filter the sweets down to one classification pair. Then they got to eat their sweets.

Year 1 science

Today we made witch hats ... To do this we had to melt chocolate ... So our science today became all about changing from a solid to liquid and back again. In our discussions and while we were melting the chocolate, we noticed the steam a the water heated on the stove so we talked about the different states of water and that got us onto electricity and the element in a kettle and so much more....