SCIENCE

Our vision for Science at Knaphill Lower School:

The intent of our Science curriculum at KLS is to foster children’s curiosity, instil a love for exploring the world around them, and develop a solid foundation of scientific knowledge and skills. We aim to provide a rich and stimulation learning environment that promotes active engagement and discovery, ensuring that children develop a deep understanding of key scientific concepts. Our overarching goal is to inspire a lifelong passion for Science. Our vision for Science at Knaphill Lower School is based on providing all children with a knowledge-rich, engaging and challenging curriculum that equips them to confidently understand science within their present world, and the changing world of the future. It focuses on the sequential development of essential knowledge underpinning Biology, Chemistry and Physics. It is carefully sequenced to build on prior knowledge, skills, and concepts, ensuring continuity and progression. It incorporates cross-curricular links to enhance children’s understanding and foster connections between different areas of learning. We believe that science is crucial in helping children to achieve their own bright future by becoming astute world scientists, who use science knowledge to develop their voice of change, through their curiosity about modern life.

As well as understanding the powerful knowledge within the domains of Biology, Chemistry and Physics, all children are empowered to become scientists as they participate in enquiry investigations. This process of hands-on enquiry supports children in their development of the working scientifically skills to enable them to understand the discipline of science as a method of asking and answer big scientific questions. When designing our curriculum, we chose to include the concept of sustainability within the development of our science schema. We aim for children to understand their impact beyond the classroom so they can begin to take action for a more sustainable future. Furthermore, we also believe in taking science beyond the classroom, as all children are provided with the opportunity to observe science in the natural world within our outdoor learning sessions. Children are given opportunities to explore, discuss and question to deepen their understanding of the world around them. As children develop a deeper connection with nature, they will begin to see the world around them from a scientific perspective.

Within science lessons, we develop children’s character by encouraging our values of curiosity, responsibility and aspiration.

The Intent for our Science Curriculum is based on ensuring that we have an approach which includes disciplinary knowledge, including:

Science’s intent for the curriculum is to continually develop a student’s substantive and disciplinary knowledge. During this curriculum journey for science, they will:

• Develop their abilities to work together and feel valued within a positive learning environment.
• Nurture their confidence to know and recall their substantive knowledge in Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Sustainability.
• Encourage development of their disciplinary knowledge such as methods, apparatus and techniques, data analysis and communications and using evidence for explanations (working scientifically).

Adapting the curriculum for pupils with SEND in Science

We are committed to ensuring that Science is accessible to all pupils, regardless of their abilities or backgrounds. We provide a differentiated curriculum that caters to individual needs and learning styles. Through careful planning and the use of appropriate resources, we create an inclusive learning environment where all pupils can thrive and make progress in Science.

• Adaptive teaching takes place to meet specific needs.
• Pre-teaching when prior learning is needed before a lesson.
• For sensory or physically impaired pupils, computing learning may necessitate enlarging texts, using clear fonts, using visual overlays, or audio description of images.
• Teachers identify and break down the components of the subject curriculum into manageable chunks for pupils who find learning more difficult, particularly those with cognition and learning needs. These may be smaller ‘steps’ than those taken by other pupils to avoid overloading the working memory. Teachers may use task boards to support a sequence of instructions.
• A variety of additional scaffolds may be used in lessons, such vocabulary banks, additional visual stimuli or adult support.