Our aim in Science is to enable young people to understand, enjoy and marvel at the natural world and universe around them. The ability to do this begins with students gaining a secure, fundamental knowledge of key scientific concepts. This knowledge is imparted through our ‘core components’ of Science – units that are studied in every year group to increasing levels of depth.

We continually draw on this fundamental knowledge in order to carefully build student understanding through our ‘additional components’ of Science – units that vary depending upon the year group – allowing students to make connections across the broader domain of Science and to tackle increasingly more complex problems. Students will engage in focussed and purposeful rehearsal of investigative skills to develop practical competency at KS3. These skills are then applied during practical work as they progress to KS4 in order to allow clear links to form between the theoretical and practical aspects of the subject. Students are further encouraged to connect their experiences in the classroom to a wider context in the world around them, allowing them to become critical consumers of scientific information and ideas.

In Science at The King’s School, we have a very clear methodology in teaching our subject to help students learn and retain knowledge and develop understanding. All lessons include ‘relevant retrieval’ which places an explicit focus on prior learning and the important links it has to that lesson. We carefully plan high-quality teacher explanation of new information and concepts using principles of cognitive science to facilitate the learning, and allow for rehearsal/practice of this both at a whole-class and individual level. We regularly check student knowledge and understanding though weekly ‘VIP (Very Important Point) Tests’ which allow us to identify knowledge gaps so that we can respond promptly to address them, and termly ‘Key Piece Assessments’ which allow us to gauge a student’s ability to use their knowledge and understanding in an applied situation.

Each department has carefully developed curriculum plans in line with our curriculum intent. The curriculum overview for each year group in this subject can be found below.