Our Vision for Science at Woodlea!

Here at Woodlea Junior School, we aim for every child to develop a passion, love and curiosity for Science. Our children enjoy the chance to learn through being totally hands-on and finding things out for themselves. Through providing them with exciting and real life experiences, we hope for them to gain a deeper understanding of the science surrounding them and think about how science could play an important role in their life later on, making links with STEM. Working with experts and external agencies is very important to us, so if you feel you can offer our school any expertise in a particular area, we would be grateful to hear from you. 

Intent:

We aim to develop a lifelong curiosity in the sciences.When planning for the science curriculum, we intend for children to have the opportunity, wherever possible, to learn through varied systematic investigations, leading to them being equipped for life to ask and answer scientific questions about the world around them. As children progress through the year groups, they build on their skills in working scientifically, as well as on their scientific knowledge, as they develop greater independence in planning and carrying out fair tests to answer a range of scientific questions. Our curriculum allows our children at Woodlea to acquire skills and knowledge to help them think and work like a scientist. 

Implementation:
The content of science teaching and learning is 5 Science units to be covered per year group. Within this, certain topics and areas are repeated across year groups, children may revisit a particular topic in each year but with increasing vocabulary and with a different focus each time. Alongside these areas runs the Working Scientifically element. This focuses on the skills the children need to become accurate, careful and confident practical scientists.Scientific knowledge and enquiry skills are developed with increasing depth and challenge as children move through the year groups. All children are expected to master certain skills in each year group and there is very clear progression of these set out. Our children are always eager to point out how they are working scientifically in each lesson and enjoy proving and sharing this with their peers and teachers. Through planned science topics, children develop the following types of science skills at Woodlea:

• Questioning and researching
• Exploring and observing
• Modelling and collaborating
• Describing results and looking for patterns
• Identifying, grouping and classifying
• Planning and testing
• Explaining and trusting results
• Communicating scientific vocabulary
• Using equipment and measures

In order to inspire our children at Woodlea, we regularly invite a scientist in to school to put their learning into context, and we have close links with the local High School (Worden High School) to deliver any practical sessions in a science lab with the use of their specialised facilities. To ensure that learning occurs in each subject equally, we provide opportunities for children to develop their scientific understanding and skills, whilst also strengthening their oral and written English. 

The content of Science covered for each year is as follows:

Impact:

At Woodlea, we believe that progress is measured through a child's ability to know more, remember more and explicitly explain more. This can be measured in a variety of different ways such as questioning and communicating with the children, walking into great science sessions and through the overall learning environment in school. Our young scientists at Woodlea will feel confident with their science knowledge and enquiry skills and therefore, will be very excited about science, show that they are actively curious to learn more and will see the relevance of what they learn in science lessons to real-life situations and also the importance of science in the real world. Children are assessed in their ability to work scientifically through teacher assessment during investigative work; their knowledge is assessed during sessions which ask scientific questions about all the unit of work being covered. 

Born Curious

From the moment that we are born, we are curious and creative beings. Without such minds, humans simply wouldn’t have thrived like we have. As we face ever growing global challenges of climate change, pandemics and inequalities, the world will be looking for creative minds to find solutions to some of humanities problems.   Curious minds aims to keep children raising questions about the world around them and suggesting reasons as to why they think what they do. So far this year,  we have looked at the inside of an avocado, a handmade human’s digestive system,  created a buzz about circuits and grown bulbs in water.  Our children have been very curious, enjoying our active displays and question bags, which aim to enrich their understanding and engagement in science, at Woodlea.

Spring Science at Woodlea

Year 3

Spring Term - In Year 3 we have been exploring Forces. We’ve discovered how friction can affect a force through an scientific investigation. With cars and different surfaces, we looked at how far the car could travel before it stopped. We concluded that the smoothest surface would be the best, which is what our results show.

Year 4

In Year 4,  we will spent Spring 1 looking at electricity and what makes a complete circuit. We also explored building circuits and understanding the flow of the electrons and where and how we use electricity in our daily lives.

Year 5

Year 5 began looking at our solar system this Spring. This is an exciting unit for them as they will be sending a message to space next term….watch this space! We finished Spring Term with a revisit to Forces, specifically looking at how things move and how resistance from air, water and friction effect movement.

Year 6
This Spring, Year 6 have been building on their year 4 electricity knowledge, exploring how different circuits can be, depending on their purpose and need. They have built circuits using ‘hot wires’ kits, traditional wires and clips and even built some on the iPads.  All methods allowed the children to be creative and curious about electricity in a safe environment. In Spring 2, Year 6 looked at the human heart and how our circulatory system works, specifically looking at how we can effect the function both positively through exercise and negatively through drugs and poor diet.