Science

Walton Priory > School Life > Curriculum > Science

The science department at Walton Priory strives to nurture a love and passion for science, which enables pupils to develop an understanding of the relevance (science capital) of studying the subject. We aim to generate curiosity (active learners) and resilience using a mastery of fundamental skills and knowledge approach across the three disciplines of Biology, Chemistry and Physics.

Alongside this we provide a platform so that all students can work scientifically, leaving them with the confidence and independence to hypothesise, plan, complete, analyse, interpret, conclude and evaluate a wide range of investigations. This allows pupils to cultivate a core understanding of how science works.

Our vision allows pupils to discover answers about the universe for themselves, which develops and strengthens their lifelong love of learning science.

The department is well resourced with two labs, which all year groups are able to access and utilise. It provides an engaging learning environment with relevant and useful displays, alongside the library offering knowledge rich texts to support and enrich learning.

We are an Ogden Trust Primary Partnership school. This programme offers funding and support to groups of schools that are committed to enhancing physics teaching and learning. The programme works with primary and secondary schools and includes a range of teacher CPD.

We are currently working towards reaccreditation for The Primary Science Quality Mark (PSQM) and enhancing this to GILT level. This is designed to set every child on a path to a life filled with exciting opportunities, by giving them access to high quality primary science education. The PSQM is enabling a world of possibilities for all children.

Learning Journey & Subject Handbook

Across the school we ensure that our scientific concepts are taught sensibly and revisited: we know the end point to which we are working and ensure that our plans build towards. Our scientific concepts are derived from the ’10 big ideas’ of Science and we ensure there is recurrent coverage of these throughout a student’s 4-year journey. Each lesson aims to extend a student’s knowledge, allows them to think about and make connections and be able to apply any new learning. We deliver a knowledge rich, deep and ambitious curriculum.

Students are taught to think critically about the ‘big questions’ related to each discipline, including those which are relevant to current affairs which supports our aim of getting students to be more curious and always pro-actively asking ‘why?’

Please click here to view the Science Handbook.

To view our Science Learning Journeys please click here for KS2 and here for KS3.

Assessment

Our assessments evaluate how well we can deliver the curriculum and how effectively individual students have retained and mastered that concept of learning. These assessments are initially used for formative purposes with a high challenge low stakes approach spiraling through topics and secondly, they are used as an accumulative summative assessment at the end of each term.

Formative assessment

During KS2 Explore, Engage, Extend activities take place at the start of a topic to activate pupils’ prior knowledge and inform the teachers on the gaps in the pupils’ knowledge and highlight misconceptions. During KS3 BEST Evidence Science resources are used for the same purpose. Lessons provide pupils with an opportunity to retrieve and use previous learning, thinking about how this links to the current topic or other subjects. Plenaries are also used to identify which pupils have understood the lesson and which pupils may need additional support or challenge in the future.

All work is acknowledged by the teacher and, where appropriate, misconceptions are addressed and/or additional tasks are provided to deepen learning. This feedback could be given ‘live’ in the lesson, to support or challenge pupils or during marking for pupils to complete during subsequent lessons. Learning by Question (LbQ) and mid-point quizzes are also used to help inform specific areas which need further consolidation and revision.

Summative assessment

Summative assessments take place at the end of each topic using LbQ, with pupils being given improvement tasks based on their specific areas for improvement. At three points in the year pupils are also given a written assessment taking the form of two parts: part one aims to revisit previous learning which builds up throughout the year/key stage; part two aims to assess the knowledge and understanding of more recent topics. Both parts of the assessments include questions focusing on working scientifically skills. Year 8 complete an end of year transition test provided by Alleyne’s Academy.

Get in Touch

Please contact the school office with any questions, comments or feedback.