‘Children should be taught how to think not what to think’
Margaret Mead
At St Benedict’s our children will develop their scientific knowledge, working scientifically skills and conceptual understanding through a broad and balanced curriculum, which inspires and stimulates their curiosity about the world around them. We recognise the importance of Science in every aspect of daily life; and we aim to provide a high-quality science education which provides the foundations for understanding the world through the specific disciplines of Biology, Chemistry and Physics. We intend to do this by gaining a deep understanding of fundamental scientific knowledge, concepts and developing scientific rich vocabulary and terminology alongside building upon the richness of our locality – developing links with the steelworks and Redcar as a coastal community. We also aim to provide children with the opportunities to work scientifically by using a range of skills to help pupils answer questions and explore scientific lines enquiry.
Aims of the Science Curriculum
The national curriculum for science aims to ensure that all pupils:
- develop scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics.
- develop understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science through different types of science enquiries that help them to answer scientific 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.
Science at St Benedict’s is organised into three distinct subject domains: biology, physics and chemistry. The sequence of substantive and disciplinary knowledge enables pupils to become ‘more expert’ with each study and grow an ever broadening and coherent mental model of the subject. This guards against superficial, disconnected and fragmented scientific
knowledge and weak disciplinary knowledge. High frequency, multiple meaning words (Tier 2) are taught explicitly and help make sense of subject specific words (Tier 3). Each learning module has a vocabulary module with teacher guidance, tasks and resources to enhance and deepen understanding.
Science at St Benedict’s is planned so that the retention of knowledge is much more than just ‘in the moment knowledge’. The cumulative nature of the curriculum is made memorable by the implementation of Bjork’s desirable difficulties, including retrieval and spaced retrieval practice, word building and deliberate practice tasks. This powerful interrelationship between structure and research-led practice is designed to increase substantive knowledge and accelerate learning within and between study modules. That means the foundational knowledge of the curriculum is positioned to ease the load on the working memory:
new content is connected to prior learning. The effect of this cumulative model supports opportunities for children to associate and connect significant scientific concepts, over time, and with increasing expertise and knowledge.
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
Isaac Newton
