Our Statement of Intent is ‘Unlocking Potential, Transforming lives’. This means that we want to unlock the potential and transform the lives of all members of our school community.

For our children, this may be removing barriers to ensure they approach their secondary education, equipped socially, emotionally and academically; for others it may be unlocking a hidden music skill which shapes their future.

For our staff, this may be providing opportunities to help them progress professionally.

For our parents, this may be removing barriers to help them access adult education.

For our wider community, this may be helping them to attend a school social event to prevent loneliness and encourage volunteering at future events.

To enable us to achieve the above, all members of the school adhere to the Core Values of:

• Safety
• Ready to Learn
• Working Together
• High Expectations
• Integrity in all that we do.

Intent

At St. Margaret’s Primary Academy, we understand that delivering a high-quality science education to all our children provides them with the foundations for understanding the world they live in. In conjunction with the aims of the National Curriculum, our science teaching offers opportunities for all children to develop an understanding and curiosity of essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science. Disciplinary knowledge (working scientifically) is taught explicitly. Children are taught to use a range of scientific skills including, questioning and planning, observing, performing a range of tests, accurately measuring, comparing through identifying and classifying, using observations and gathering data.

Implementation

St. Margaret’s Primary Academy has a positive attitude to science teaching and learning. Staff reinforce an expectation that all children can make good progress and achieve high standards in science. To support this, we have deliberately chosen to use CUSP as a curriculum because:

• The Science curriculum has sequenced the national curriculum into meaningful and connected ‘chunks’ of content to create coherent and strong long-term memories. 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.
• The Science curriculum is organised into three distinct subject domains: biology, physics and chemistry. Where inter-disciplinary concepts are encountered, they are taught explicitly and connected across the domains.
• The Science curriculum is planned so that retention of knowledge is more than just ‘in the moment’ knowledge. The cumulative nature of the curriculum is designed to increase substantive knowledge.
• Science lessons are delivered through ‘my turn’, ‘our turn’ ‘your turn’. Science knowledge is revisited and connected to new learning through retrieval and spaced retrieval practice.
• Tier 2 Science vocabulary is taught explicitly, this then allows children to make sense of tier 3 vocabulary (subject specific).
• Disciplinary knowledge is taught explicitly, children will use their substantive knowledge in order to help them in their questioning and planning, observing, performing a range of tests, accurately measuring, comparing through identifying and classifying, using observations and gathering data to help answer questions, explaining and reporting, predicting, concluding, improving, and seeking patterns.

Impact

The Science curriculum at St. Margaret’s Primary Academy provides children with the foundations for understanding the natural world. They will be confident in using and explaining scientific vocabulary, they will ask questions about their science learning and reflect on the knowledge they have acquired. By connecting children’s learning through a variety of contexts, the progression of learning is clear through each key stage, preparing pupils for the next stage of education.

All staff at St. Margaret’s Primary Academy set high expectations which inspire, motivate and challenge pupils. The pupils at St. Margaret’s Primary Academy gain an understanding of how Science has changed our lives and that it is vital to the world’s future prosperity. Children learn the potential for careers in science as a result of our community links. Pupil voice is used to further develop the science curriculum, through questioning of pupil’s views and attitudes to science to support the children’s enjoyment and to motivate learners. At the end of each half-term staff will assess children’s knowledge against the skills and progression document for science. The ambitious nature of the CUSP curriculum fulfils and goes beyond the expectations of the National Curriculum.