Science at Amberley

We love science at Amberley and embrace it as an opportunity to engage pupils in practical, experiential learning. Science is used to enhance creativity in our pupils and to help develop team and leadership skills. It provides opportunities to link with our eco-schools work on sustainability: we are proud owners of our own Wind Turbine and holders of three Green Flag Eco-School Awards.

At Amberley, we understand that improving and enhancing STEM education is a national priority for our young, aspiring pupils. We aim to promote high achievement in the STEM subjects by providing pupils with engaging tasks that challenge, stimulate and promote curiosity in the subjects. 

We promote science fully within our STEM week and we are lucky to have made excellent  links with parents, local businesses and local universities who help us make STEM week a successful and memorable part of the school year. By promoting STEM week, both to pupils, parents and in the community, we hope to ignite sparks of interest in science/STEM careers in our pupils and help them see the road ahead into the 'world of work.'

Finally, we are proud to share that we were awarded our 'Primary Science Quality Mark' Award in the Summer of 2019. Please look at the portfolio of photographs below to get an idea of what science looks like in our school.

Rationale

At Amberley Primary School, the intent of our science curriculum is to ensure all children leave the school with a secure foundation of scientific knowledge and practical skills. This understanding will help to ensure all children have the ability to be successful in any potential future learning and enjoyment in the scientific field. 

We want our children to be determined, enthusiastic and motivated about science learning.  We nurture the natural curiosity of our children during science lessons, enabling them to become independent in thought and actions and encouraging them to develop self-motivation and a life-long love of science learning. 

At Amberley Primary School, we believe that science stimulates and excites children's curiosity about phenomena and events in the world around them. It also satisfies their curiosity with knowledge. This is because science links direct practical experience with ideas and it can engage learners at many levels. We believe that science will lead to a better understanding of ourselves and the world. It provides opportunities to appreciate scientific facts and concepts and to experience scientific discovery. 

Amberley's School Values in Science 

Curriculum Intent

The 2014 National Curriculum for Science aims to ensure that all children:

• Develop scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics.

• Develop understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science through different types of science enquiries that help them to answer scientific questions about the world around them.

• Are equipped with the scientific skills required to understand the uses and implications of science, today and for the future. We understand that it is important for lessons to have a skills-based focus, and that the knowledge can be taught through this.

At Amberley Primary School, we understand that children are naturally curious, and we encourage this inquisitive nature throughout their time with us and beyond by planning and developing sequential lesson that build on prior knowledge. Science fosters a healthy curiosity in children about our universe and promotes respect for the living and non-living. Children across school, in both key stages, have a good understanding of what science is. We believe science encompasses the acquisition of knowledge, concepts, skills and positive attitudes. Through the programmes of study in the National Curriculum science document, children will acquire and develop these skills throughout their Primary years. We ensure that the Working Scientifically skills are built-on and developed throughout the pupils' school career so that they can use equipment, conduct experiments, investigate questions, build arguments and explain concepts confidently and continue to ask questions and be curious about their surroundings.

Curriculum Implementation

To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in Science, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. We plan to ensure full coverage of, ‘The National Curriculum programmes of study for Science 2014’ and, ‘Understanding of the World’ in the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Science teaching at Amberley Primary School involves adapting and extending the curriculum to match all pupils’ needs. Where possible, Science is linked to class topics (for example, ‘Rocks’ and ‘The Stone Age’ in Year 3).

We ensure that all children are provided with rich learning experiences that aim to:

• Prepare our children for life in an increasingly scientific and technological world today and in the future.

• Help our children acquire a growing understanding of the nature, processes and methods of scientific ideas.

• Help develop and extend our children’s scientific concept of their world.

• Build on our children’s natural curiosity and developing a scientific approach to problems.

• Encouraging open-mindedness, self-assessment, perseverance and developing the skills of investigations – including: observing, measuring, predicting, hypothesising, experimenting, communicating, interpreting, explaining and evaluating.

• Develop the use of scientific language, recording and techniques.

• Develop the use of computing in investigating and recording.

• Make links between science and other subjects.

Science is taught consistently, once a week for up to two hours. At Amberley Primary School we aspire to promote children’s independence and for all children to take responsibility in their own learning, therefore we use science knowledge organisers and scientific glossaries  to encourage independent science learning. Science leaders at Amberley Primary School are involved with the Primary Science Teaching Trust and our shared vision is to see excellent teaching of science in primary classrooms. We work alongside other leaders of primary science in North Tyneside and the sharing of good practice enables us to raise the profile of science here at Amberley Primary School. Science leaders also work alongside teachers across the North East of England on a partnership scheme with the Great North Museum in Newcastle. 

We also enrich the science curriculum at Amberley Primary School by offering various opportunities, such as after school clubs, science based trips and opportunities to explore STEM centred careers. Science is celebrated around the school through classroom displays, use of our outdoor areas and opportunities for children to engage in STEM activities in our Invention Shed. We also hold an annual, whole-school celebration of everything STEM. Each year, the theme changes but the foundation of the week centres on celebrating and fostering the love of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. We invite a range of visitors and parents, who are involved in the STEM industry, to come in to school and deliver a range of workshops to broaden the children's Science Capital. 

Curriculum Impact

The successful approach to the teaching of Science at Amberley results in a fun, engaging, high-quality science education, that provides children with the foundations for understanding the world.

Our engagement with the local environment ensures that children learn through varied and first hand experiences of the world around them. So much of science lends itself to outdoor learning and so we provide children with opportunities to experience this. Through various workshops, trips and interactions with experts and local charities, children have the understanding that science has changed our lives and that it is vital to the world’s future prosperity. We want children to enjoy science and this believe that this ultimately results in motivated and passionate learners.

Children at Amberley give positive feedback about their science learning and have a enthusiastic attitude to science lessons. Parents and people in the community are widely involved in our various STEM initiatives which results in a shared love of science being promoted through the school’s social media.

Amberley Primary school was awarded the Primary Science Quality Mark from the University of Hertfordshire in September 2019. This award focuses on developing effective, confident science leadership for whole school impact on science teaching and learning.

For the past five Years, Amberley Primary School has been involved in the delivery of support to trainee teachers who are undertaking the SCITT initial teacher training course. The science good practice day has involved trainee teachers from North Tyneside observing science lessons across school.

Teaching staff use a wide range of formative assessment tools during lessons to judge the impact that the teaching of science is having on the children's learning. The science leads use regular and robust monitoring including learning walks, data analysis, book looks and pupil voice to gauge the impact of our science curriculum and review the curriculum to ensure that it meet the needs of all learners. High quality CPD is also delivered when necessary to all staff.

At Amberley Primary School, we are extremely proud of our classrooms and the environments that we create for our pupils is important: we want displays to be used to stimulate and create pupil interest and display teaching aids that simply enrich or reinforce what is being taught. 

We want wall displays to make the room appear more inviting and we also want to create a better learning environment for all. All Science displays around school have examples of key vocabulary for that particular unit and the 5 key enquiry types that we use from Year 1 all the way up to Year 6. 

Bring It On Festival

The Bring It On Festival 2022 was a huge success! Children form Year 5 and Year 6 were invited along to this very informative and inspiring educational event held at the Beacon of Light in Sunderland. Exhibitors from all around the North East showcased their STEM related careers and taught the children about their jobs roles in science, technology, engineering and maths. 

Bring it On statement: "We aim to do encourage students to become interested in STEM by Educating young people about the engineering in their region, Inspiring them to want to be part of it and Informing them about what they need to do to become so."