St Ann’s Science Curriculum Intent

At St Ann’s our intention is to provide a Science Curriculum which stimulates and sustains children’s natural curiosity about the world around them. We aim to offer opportunities to recognise and be inspired by the awe and wonder of God’s creation through the study of key scientific concepts.

We want the children to develop as critical and independent thinkers and will enrich, extend and consolidate learning in a variety of contexts.  Through systematic and progressive planning, we intend to encourage the children to explore, learn about and understand key scientific concepts which will enable them to explain their observations and make predictions about how things will behave.  We want the children to acquire the key scientific knowledge and skills to understand the natural phenomena of the world and by putting scientific enquiry at the heart of our science teaching we aim to develop our pupil’s sense of awe and wonder about God’s creation.

We aim for our children to:

• be curious about things they observe, and experience and explore the world about them with all their senses
• use this experience to develop their understanding of key scientific ideas
• begin to think about models to represent things they cannot directly experience
• try to make sense of phenomena, seeking explanation and thinking critically

We aim to raise the standards of pupil’s knowledge and understanding through:

• the provision of a wide range of scientific investigations which will lead to children becoming progressively more competent in designing and carrying out their own investigations
• the building of knowledge of an extended specialist vocabulary
• the application of mathematical knowledge in scientific investigation including collecting, presenting and analysing data

We aim to develop our pupil’s skills in scientific enquiry by ensuring that pupils learn to use a variety of approaches to answer relevant scientific questions, namely:

• researching using secondary sources
• seeking and identifying patterns
• identifying, classifying and grouping
• comparative and fair testing

We aim to increase the opportunities for the children to experience:

• natural phenomena at first hand through the use of our extensive grounds and local parks
• Visits to science museums and exhibitions
• Presentations and workshops conducted by science experts
• Science in partner high schools