Intent:

The curriculum has been designed to empower pupils with virtues that enable them to excel academically and spiritually inspiring them to serve humanity selflessly, with an abundance of love, compassion and forgiveness.

Our curriculum is constructed around our vision to ensure we remain:

 

Faith-inspired: learning from the wisdom of religion

At Primley Wood we aim to foster holistic growth and character development. We focus on nurturing compassionate, responsible human beings who aspire for excellence in all aspects of life. Exploring religious wisdom allows pupils to respect diverse faith traditions and the beliefs of those without faith.

 

Virtues-led: We aim to develop pupils to become compassionate, responsible human beings

This is done through promoting virtues which we believe form the foundation of all goodness and prepares children for lifelong learning. Our curriculum is carefully enriched to allow experiences where our pupils, teachers and parents alike learn to grow through a conscious focus on virtues. Our virtues-led education approach helps to provide guidance to enable pupils to understand their choices in order to help lead better lives. Our pupils become self-reflective and flourish; they are able to build strong, meaningful relationships and understand their responsibilities to the wider world.

 

Aspiring for Excellence: in all that we do.

Our pupils and staff alike aim to become the best human beings they can possibly be, in all aspects of spiritual, social, intellectual and physical life. We foster a school culture which inspires optimism and confidence, hope and determination for all to achieve their best possible. This is accomplished through a rich and challenging curriculum, along with excellent teaching to nurture awe and wonder. Pupils gain a breadth and depth of knowledge and a love of learning to achieve their full potential.

 

The curriculum at Primley Wood Primary School has been carefully crafted to be broad, balanced and stimulating, giving every pupil the opportunity to be knowledgeable, multi-skilled, highly literate, highly numerate, creative, expressive, compassionate and confident people. 

 

The science curriculum is designed to give pupils a strong understanding of the world around them and promote curiosity. As pupils move through the science curriculum, they will acquire and practice the use of specific knowledge and skills from the disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics to help them think scientifically, explain what is occurring and predict how things will behave. The curriculum is sequenced in a way to allow learners to regularly revisit topics, therefore new knowledge and skills are built on what has already been taught. Each unit has built in practice, retrieval and reinforcement of the key concepts to ensure knowledge sticks in the long-term memory.

 

The curriculum is necessarily aspirational, focused on excellence and on securing in all learners a love of learning through the acquisition of knowledge and an understanding of the world around them.

 

 

Implementation

 

The science curriculum at Primley Wood is based upon the principles of a spiral curriculum so that each year pupils will build on existing components of knowledge formed in ever-increasing depth and complexity to develop fluency in the fundamentals of science. Retrieval and practice help to promote recall and application of knowledge and skills.  There is an even coverage of all three sciences to ensure there is sufficient mastery of each discipline.

 

In all year groups, the ‘Developing Experts” scheme is used to guide the teaching of science. The scheme provides full coverage of the National Curriculum, following the programmes of study for each year group carefully. It provides the right balance between working scientifically and learning scientific facts. It links directly to scientific knowledge, skills and understanding to ensure that learning is progressive and continuous.

 

Our curriculum gradually builds on prior learning, embedding new knowledge into larger concepts. Substantive knowledge is sequenced so that pupils can establish links between concepts from different topics. Connections are made between years and stages so that core scientific principles are regularly highlighted and revisited. For example; Animals, including humans’ units begin at a basic level in Year 1 and build through the year groups to more complex concepts in Year 6. The variety of ways new learning is presented is designed to help pupils remember new concepts in the long term: these include text, images, videos, games, quizzes and practical experiments. The research behind Rocket Thinking activities has shown that generating open-ended discussions with learners helps them with the retention of knowledge. Rocket Thinking discussions enable learners to make links between scientific concepts and provide an opportunity for them to see the relevance of these concepts in the real world.

 

Teachers are supported through high-quality documents and resources. Expert films are embedded within every lesson to demonstrate how the lesson’s knowledge is relevant to the wider world. These experts show the application of the scientific topic within their workplace and showcase 3 potential employment opportunities.

 

Transitions:

Moving from EYFS to KS1:

Our learning journey starts in the Early Years where children are exposed to the changing seasons throughout the year with weekly visits to the local woodland. They are taught about living and non-living things and understand how both animals and plants change during the cycle of life.  Whilst allowing pupils to work successfully towards the Development Matters statements and Early Learning Goals, the Scientific elements taught in the EYFS provide a solid foundation of scientific skills, knowledge and enquiry for children to transition successfully onto Key stage 1 Science learning.

 

Moving on to KS3:

After exposure to our Science curriculum, pupils will leave school equipped with a range of skills and knowledge to enable them to study Science with confidence at Key stage 3.  We hope to shape children into curious and inspired scientists with respect and appreciation for the world around them alongside an understanding of the importance of science in their day to day lives. We make links with our local secondary schools asking teachers to come in and provide Science opportunities for our pupils.

 

Enrichment Opportunities

 

Enrichment goes beyond curriculum requirements for the teaching of science. It will have an impact on a pupil’s learning by creating memorable experiences both in the classroom and beyond. This involves, educational visits, topical workshops, speakers and science projects.  Our science curriculum aims to give every child the opportunity to feel like an expert within the subject. We believe that pupils learn best when they are engaged and see a true purpose to their learning.

 

Learning is enriched with a range of educational visits such as: Tropical World, Harewood House, Stump Cross Caverns, Eureka science and discovery centre, Yorkshire Wildlife Park and Bradford Science and Media Museum. Pupils also have opportunities to discover more about their own local environment using the school grounds and nearby woodland to enhance their experiences of real-life science.

 

Cultural capital is developed through access to ‘live lessons’ where pupils can interact with scientists from a range of scientific disciplines. Workshops and visits from prominent members of our local community such as dentists enhance our cultural capital. A celebration of science is planned annually with ‘British Science Week’, this is a whole school celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths.

 

Impact:

Pupils will know more, remember more and understand more about the curriculum. Pupils retain prior-learning and explicitly make connections between what they have previously learned and what they are currently learning.

 

All pupils will have: 

• A wider variety of skills linked to both scientific knowledge and understanding, and scientific enquiry/investigative skills.
• A richer vocabulary which will enable them to articulate their understanding of taught concepts.
• Confidence and a love of learning for all things science.

 

Formative assessment is an integral part of our approach to Teaching and Learning. Teachers use questioning and assessment for learning to assess and respond to pupil learning in real time. This ensures pupil misconceptions are identified and addressed quickly.

 

At Primley Wood, teachers use assessment for learning within lessons to provide live feedback to allow pupils to deepen their understanding and identify gaps in knowledge and skills. Knowledge reviews are planned for spaced retrieval and allow for misconceptions to be addressed and further embed pupils understanding of key knowledge, skills and vocabulary. The progression of skills and knowledge allows teachers to assess the impact over the course of a unit, year and across phases. The scheme of learning is used to identify prior links and future learning which informs teacher assessment and allows building blocks of learning to further develop schemas within topics and across subjects.  

 

Assessments are used alongside knowledge organisers to assess the impact of learning at the end of a unit. This in turn informs future teaching adaptations, based on misconceptions and gaps in knowledge and skills. Enquiry questions are used to assess the impact of the teaching of knowledge, skills and vocabulary by allowing pupils to apply their understanding through reflections and critical thinking.