Science

Science at Livingstone Primary School, is taught through a topic approach. Throughout the year, children will cover 6 main topics, 3 of which have a science focus.

Each topic is introduced through a question such as Would a dinosaur make a good pet? Or What would a journey around your body look like? The questions hook the children into the topic and make them enthusiastic about what they are going to learn. All of the scientific knowledge objectives for each year group are covered in the science driven topics. Children will also learn about some famous scientists and their discoveries as part of these science topics.

Science lessons throughout the school have been planned around key concepts which are the same throughout all year groups but which build on each other and get harder year on year. This means that children can see when they are building on learning which has taken place in a previous year group and helps them to make links between different topics to support their understanding and help embed the knowledge in their long-term memory.

Each science topic starts off with a mind map where children write down anything they already know about the topic and any questions that they would like to be able to answer by the end of the half term. This helps the children to organise their thoughts on the subject and supports the teachers to adapt lessons to the needs of the children. At the end of the unit, the children add to the mind map in a different colour to show how much they have learned during the topic.

During history and geography topics, children still learn science by improving their skills on scientific enquiry. Scientific enquiry skills include: questioning, observing, measuring, comparing and testing, sorting and classifying and researching using books or the internet. Activities are planned into each non-science based unit to ensure that children get a chance to practise and improve these skills regularly. Some examples of working scientifically in history and geography are: comparing habitats in a geography topic based on the rainforest or building and testing catapults in a history unit about the Romans.

Every year, Livingstone takes part in National Science Week to get the children even more excited about science. Children can take part in investigations and experiments to learn more about the world around us and help them to see that science is everywhere and that everybody can be a scientist. Children get a chance to visit science museums and welcome scientific visitors to our school to support their learning.