Science

Autumn 1

Autumn 2

Spring 1

Spring 2

Summer 1

Summer 2

Reception

Ongoing throughout the year:

Seasonal changes explored in ‘Muddy Monday’ outdoor learning sessions. This links to the EYFS Understanding the World.

Seasons (observing changes in our environment)

Show your own concern and respect for others, living things and the environment.

Use opportunities to stop and listen carefully for environmental sounds, and talk about sounds you can hear such as long, short, high, low.

Healthy Eating/Healthy Lifestyle

Eats a healthy range of foodstuffs and understands need for variety in food.

Children know the importance for good health of physical exercise, and a healthy diet, and talk about ways to keep healthy and safe

Keeping fit and healthy /Exercise

Children know the importance for good health of physical exercise, and a healthy diet, and talk about ways to keep healthy and safe

Minibeasts/

Habitats

Looks closely at similarities, differences, patterns and change. Give opportunities to record findings by, eg drawing, writing, making a model or photographing. Give opportunities to design practical, attractive environments, for example, taking care of the flowerbeds or organising equipment outdoors.

Use correct terms so that, e.g. children will enjoy naming a chrysalis if the practitioner uses its correct name.

Space/

Movement

Looks closely at similarities, differences, patterns and change.

Provide stimuli and resources for children to create simple maps and plans, paintings, drawings and models of observations of known and imaginary landscapes.

Year 1

Everyday Materials

Identify and name

Compare and Group

Describe Properties

(linked with Three Little Pigs in Literacy)

Animal Classification

Identify and Name

Describe and Compare Structure

(amphibians, reptiles, birds etc)

Identify and name carnivores, herbivores, omnivores.

Plants

Identify/name wild and garden plants, deciduous and evergreen trees

Identify and name parts of a plant

Humans

Identify, name, draw and label basic body parts

Senses

Year 2

Materials application – linked with D&T – making a pirate ship / cannon

Compare materials and their suitability – creation of our pirate ship – two separate experiments.

1, 2 (time) 3, 5, 6

Habitats/ to include food chains / animal adaptation

Most living things live in habitats to which they are suited (adapted

Food chains

Identify and name animals in their habitats incl micro habitats

4, 5,

Materials application (D&T / History focus) – linked with Victorian toy – why did the Victorians not use certain materials? Why did they use wood etc

Healthy me – incl exercise

Where has our food come from? – name plants – where they have come from and why (Living things and their habitats)

1,4, 6,

Plants / Growth

Observe and describe how seeds and bulbs grow into mature plants.

Find out and describe how plants need water, light and a suitable temperature

1, 2, 3, 5, 6

Year 3

Forces and Magnets

Compare how thing move on different surfaces. - (INVESTIGATION)

Notice that some forces need contact between two objects, but magnetic forces can act at a distance.

Compare and group together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of whether they are attracted to a magnet, and identify some magnetic materials. (INVESTIGATION)

Describe magnets as having two poles and predict whether two magnets will attract or repel each other depending on which poles are facing.

Working scientifically:

Set up practical enquiries and fair tests.

Gather record data

Report on findings

Draw simple conclusions

Identify similarities and differences

Rocks and Soils

Compare and group together different kinds of rocks on the basis of their appearance and simple properties (linked to Geography and volcanoes).

Describe in simple terms how fossils are formed when things that have lived are trapped within rock (making fossils)

Recognise that soils are made from rocks and organic matter (revisit in Summer 1)

Animals and Humans

Identify that animals including humans need the right amount/ types of nutrition/they can’t make their own food and get nutrition from what they eat– (recaps Y2 learning).

Identify that humans and animals have skeletons and muscles.

Identify that skeletons and muscles provide support, protection and movement.

Plants

Identify the different parts of plants (recaps Y2 learning).

Describe the functions of different parts of flowering plants- stigma, stamen, anther, ovary, ovules, filament.

Explore the part flowers play in the life cycle of a flowering plant.

Plants

Explore the requirements of plants for life and growth and how they vary from plant to plant. (air, light, water, nutrients from soil, room to grow).

Investigate the way in which water is transported within plants (investigation – colour dye in carnations/celery)

Explore the part that flowers play in pollination and seed dispersal.

Working scientifically:

Set up practical enquiries and fair tests.

Gather record data

Report on findings

Draw simple conclusions

Present data

Identify similarities and differences

Use of equipment and measurements.

Use evidence to support findings.

Light and shadow

Recognise that we need light in order to see things.

Recognise that light is the absence of dark. (investigation)

Notice that light is reflected from surfaces.

Recognise that light from sun can be dangerous and that there are ways to protect the eyes.

Find patterns in the way that the size of shadows change - (investigation and link to DT – shadow puppets)

Working scientifically:

Set up practical enquiries and fair tests.

Gather record data

Report on findings

Draw simple conclusions

Present data

Identify similarities and differences

Use of equipment and measurements.

Use evidence to support findings.

Year 4

Teeth and Digestion

Describe the simple functions of the basic parts of the digestive system in humans.

Identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions.

Construct and interpret a variety of food chains, identifying producers, predators and prey.

Scientific Enquiry

Asking relevant questions and using different types of scientific enquiries to answer them.

Setting up simple practical enquiries, comparative and fair tests.

Making systematic and careful observations and, where appropriate, taking accurate measurements using standard units, using a range of equipment, including thermometers and data loggers.

Gathering, recording, classifying and presenting data in a variety of ways to help in answering questions.

Recording findings using simple scientific language, drawings, labelled diagrams, keys, bar charts, and tables.

Living Things and Their Habitats

Recognise that living things can be grouped in a variety of ways.

Explore and use classification keys to help group, identify and name a variety of living things in their local and wider environment.

Recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers to living things.

Electricity

Identify common appliances that run on electricity.

Construct a simple series electrical circuit, identifying and naming its basic parts, including cells, wires, bulbs, switches and buzzers.

Identify whether or not a lamp will light in a simple series circuit.

Recognise that a switch opens and closes a circuit.

Recognise some common conductors and insulators, and associate metals with being good conductors

States of matter

Compare and group materials together, according to whether they are solids, liquids or gases.

Observe that some materials change state when they are heated or cooled, and measure or research the temperature at which this happens in degrees Celsius (°C).

Identify the part played by evaporation and condensation in the water cycle and associate the rate of evaporation with temperature.

Sound

Identify how sounds are made, associating some of them with something vibrating.

Recognise that vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear.

Find patterns between the pitch of a sound and features of the object that produced it.

Find patterns between the volume of a sound and the strength of the vibrations that produced it.

Recognise that sounds get fainter as the distance from the sound source increases.

Year 5

Physics - Forces: To explain that unsupported objects fall towards the Earth because of the force of gravity acting between the Earth and the falling object.

Identify the effect of drag forces, such as air resistance, water resistance and friction that act between moving surfaces.

Understand that force and motion can be transferred through mechanical devices such as gears, pulleys, levers and springs and to recognise that these mechanisms allow a smaller force to have a greater effect.

To Work Scientifically:

Plan enquiries, including recognising and controlling variables where necessary.

Chemistry -

Properties of materials:

Compare and group together everyday materials based on evidence from comparative and fair tests, including their hardness, solubility, conductivity (electrical and thermal), and response to magnets.

Understand how some materials will dissolve in liquid to form a solution and describe how to recover a substance from a solution.

Use knowledge of solids, liquids and gases to decide how mixtures might be separated, including through filtering, sieving and evaporating.

Give reasons, based on evidence from comparative and fair tests, for the particular uses of everyday materials, including metals, wood and plastic.

Demonstrate that dissolving, mixing and changes of state are reversible changes.

   Explain that some changes result in the formation of new materials, and that this kind of change is not usually reversible, including changes associated with burning, oxidisation and the action of acid on bicarbonate of soda.

To Work Scientifically:

Take measurements, using a range of scientific equipment, with increasing accuracy and precision.

Famous Scientists and Inventors

Working scientifically (embedded throughout all units):

 Focus on developing skills and investigation

Plan enquiries, including recognising and controlling variables where necessary.

Use appropriate techniques, apparatus, and materials during fieldwork and laboratory work.

Take measurements, using a range of scientific equipment, with increasing accuracy and precision.

Record data and results of increasing complexity using scientific diagrams and labels, classification keys, tables, bar and line graphs, and models.

Physics

Earth and Space:

Describe the movement of the Earth, and other planets, relative to the sun in the solar system.

Describe the movement of the Moon relative to the Earth.

Describe the Sun, Earth and Moon as approximately spherical bodies.

Use the idea of the Earth’s rotation to explain day and night.

To Work Scientifically

Present findings in written form, displays and other presentations.

Biology

Living Things and Habitats:

Describe the differences in the life cycles of a mammal, an amphibian, and inset and a bird (birth, growth, development, reproduction, death).

Describe the life process of reproduction in some plants.

To Work Scientifically

Record data and results of increasing complexity using scientific diagrams and labels, classification keys, tables, bar and line graphs, and models.  

Biology

Animals including Humans

 Growth and change in humans:

To describe the changes as humans develop to old age.

Describe the life process of reproduction in some animals.

Describe the changes as humans develop from birth to old age.

Recognise the impact of diet, exercise, drugs and lifestyle on the way human bodies function.

To Work Scientifically:

Record data and results of increasing complexity using scientific diagrams and labels, classification keys, tables, bar and line graphs, and models.

Year 6

Evolution and Inheritance

Recognise that living things have changed over time and that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago.

 Recognise that living things produce offspring of the same kind, but normally offspring vary and are not identical to their parents.

Identify how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment in different ways and that adaptation may lead to evolution.

Light and Electricity

Associate the brightness of a lamp or the volume of a buzzer with the number and voltage of cells used in the circuit.

Compare and give reasons for variations in how components function, including the brightness of bulbs, the loudness of buzzers and the on/off position of switches.

Use recognised symbols when representing a simple circuit in a diagram.

Recognise that light appears to travel in straight lines.

Use the idea that light travels in straight lines to explain that objects are seen because they give out or reflect light into the eye.

Explain that we see things because light travels from light sources to our eyes or from light sources to objects and then to our eyes.

Use the idea that light travels in straight lines to explain why shadows have the same shape as the objects that cast the shadow.

Animals and Humans

Identify and name the main parts of the human circulatory system, and describe the functions of the heart, blood vessels and blood.

Recognise the impact of diet, exercise, drugs and lifestyle on the way their bodies function.

 Describe the ways in which nutrients and water are transported in animals and humans.

British Scientists and AT 1

Describe and evaluate their own and other people’s scientific ideas related to topics in the national curriculum (including ideas that have changed over time).

Living Things and Their Habitats

Describe how living things are classified into broad groups according to common observable characteristics and based on similarities and differences, including micro-organisms, plants and animals.

Give reasons for classifying plants and animals based on specific characteristics.