SCIENCE

Aims and ambitions

At Old Basford School, we want to harness our children’s natural excitement and curiosity and inspire them to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave and analyse causes. We educate our pupils so they develop scientific knowledge and understanding through the disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics. They will develop an understanding of science through different types of enquiries that help them to answer scientific questions about the world around them. Using a clearly planned out curriculum, our children are equipped with scientific skills such as observation; pattern spotting; identifying, classifying and grouping; comparative and fair testing; researching using secondary sources; and answering questions through collecting, analysing and presenting data. Our children feel empowered to be curious and fascinated about the world and to know that science is vital to the world’s future prosperity.

Sequence and Progression

In EYFS, we teach Science through the Early Learning Goal of: Understanding of the World : Natural world. We build on and develop all children’s interest in their physical world and their community. Their personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them. For example, using the indoor continuous provision to explore different environments and habitats through small world play and the outdoor provision to talk about the changes they observe in their environment. The children also learn about forces and capacity through sand and water play.

We then follow the National Curriculum in Years 1 to Year 6. We have adapted the NC in to the Old Basford Curriculum Progression map and aligned this with our creative topics. The units of learning are age appropriate and progressive from Y1 to Y6. Our science units of learning are organised into three main disciplines: chemistry, physics and biology. Working scientifically is the common thread that runs through each strand. The children are taught practical scientific methods, processes and skills that build on each other progressively through the curriculum.

At the beginning of each lesson, key concepts and subject specific vocabulary are revisited and built upon. In addition, the learning objectives linked to knowledge and skills are shared explicitly to the children.

Children leave OBS ready and equipped to face the next stage in their Science education.

OBS SCIENCE PROGRESSION DOCUMENT

OBS SCIENCE PROGRESSION.pdf

SCIENCE STAR GAZING EVENING!

Last night (21.2.24) was a very exciting one at OBS! Year 5 children were invited back to school to take part in a 'STAR GAZING EVENING' to support their learning about Earth and Space. The evening was ran by Laurel Armstrong who is the Science Lead for Nottingham Schools Trus. Things kicked off with an interactive tour of the solar system then Laurel used her planetarium to give the children a fascinating tour of the night sky. They learnt all about the different constellations we can see from planet Earth. Using a special app, the children then went outside to see how many stars they could spot. Sadly, it was a cloudy night but we did manage to spot a few stars and even the planet Jupiter was visible!

Back inside, the children took part in various fun activities to do with Earth and Space such as training to be an astronaut, using telescopes and building rockets. The evening finished with hot chocolate and biscuits!

SCIENCE PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION

Back in November, Miss McCulloch (Science Lead) launched an exciting photography competition. The theme of the competition was 'THE WEATHER' and the children were challenged to take an interesting and unusual photograph of some aspect of the weather and bring it into school. Astonishingly, we received over 60 entries across the whole school and Miss McCulloch found it incredibly difficult to pick one winner from each year group! Huge congratulations to the following children whose entries did win and they were rewarded with a 'SCEINCE PARTY BAG' as their prize. The party bag contained a book of science experiments that can be done at home and also the resources needed to conduct the experiments. Well done children!

YEAR 6 BEATS AND BREATHS TOPIC

Year 6 are having a fabulous time this half term (Autumn 1) learning all about the heart and lungs in their 'Beats and Breaths topic. They have learnt to identify and name the parts of the human circulatory system and they know all about how the heart and lungs work. The children can confidently describe how the lungs work and they even made models of the lungs themselves using a plastic bottle and balloons. When learning about blood, our clever Year 6's could name the different components of blood and what their purpose was. They even had a lesson making their very own blood which they loved. Come and see all the fun they had in the photos below!