Science at Wilshere-Dacre

Intent 

Science teaching at Wilshere-Dacre involves adapting and extending the curriculum to match all our pupils’ needs to ensure they are challenged and achieve success, regardless of their starting point. We want our children to be naturally curious about the world around them and so to encourage their scientific thinking we embed enquiry skills into each topic and aim to make our lessons exciting, enjoyable and stimulating. 

The national curriculum for Science aims to ensure that all pupils: 

• Pupils will develop scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics 

• They will 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 

• They will be equipped with the scientific knowledge required to understand the uses and implications of science, today and for the future. 

​​​​​Implementation  

At Wilshere-Dacre Junior School, science is taught weekly as a stand-alone subject with suitable links being made to other topics where appropriate throughout the academic year. 

Teachers use recall starters at the beginning of each lesson as a way to revisit children’s prior science learning from the current and previous year groups and test their knowledge of key words. 

We have a strong focus on improving children’s scientific vocabulary and 10 key words have been selected from each topic to display in classrooms alongside the teaching. These words also appear on title pages in the children’s books. Throughout each unit, the children add definitions to their title pages creating their own glossaries of key words which they can refer back to as a revision tool. 

Teachers are encouraged to make learning in Science hands on and creative: practical investigations are embedded into each unit, and we aim to take learning outside as often as possible using our school grounds to enrich the children’s learning experience. 

In a world where environmental concerns and sustainable practices have taken centre stage, it is crucial to engage our future generation in shaping a sustainable future. At Wilshere-Dacre, we have embedded sustainability objectives into our science curriculum. As a result, our children are gaining confidence in their understanding of climate change, the carbon cycle and how they can make a positive impact to the changes in our world. 

We assess science half termly with a quiz taken after the half term break. This helps teachers to judge how well the children have retained new learning and informs future planning.  

Impact 

The children at Wilshere-Dacre are proud of their science work, this is evident in their books and on the displays around school showing the learning journey in each topic. By the time children in Year 6 leave us, we hope that all the children will feel they are scientists and capable of achieving.  They will have knowledge of the possibilities for future careers as a result of a meaningful and impactful science teaching.