Jubilee Primary School.
Science curriculum 2014 – 2015
Written by A. Crockett. 2014
GENERAL POINTS
The new Primary Curriculum promises:
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To increase rigor.
To be more demanding than the National Curriculum.
To raise standards in “the basics”.
To enable children to do more advanced work at secondary school.
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THERE IS A STATUTORY REQUIREMENT TO TEACH ENGLISH, MATHS &
SCIENCE.
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The programmes of study are set out year by year:
Key Stage One – Years 1 & 2
Lower Key Stage Two – Years 3 & 4
Upper Key Stage Two – Years 5 & 6
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PROGRAMME OF STUDY
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Each year has its own P of S with years 1 & 2 being KS1, years 3 &
4 being lower KS2 and years 5 & 6 being upper KS2.
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The P of S is divided into two sections –
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
This is the part of the P of S that forms the core content and must be
understood by all
the pupils before moving on.
NON STATUTORY GUIDANCE
This is the part of the P of S that suggests areas of study that can be
taught to extend
the core content and ensure pupils are given the challenge they
require.
Aspects of the P of S can be moved between years providing the core
content has been covered by the end of the key stage.
KEY STAGE 1
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GENERAL POINTS
In KS1 pupils should be introduced to a variety of plants and
animals, materials and physical phenomena.
Pupils should work scientifically, work practically and use a variety
of research methods including books and ICT.
Working scientifically should be delivered through the teaching of
substantive subject content and is not to be taught separately.
Pupils should read and write scientific vocabulary, consistent with
their phonic knowledge.
YEAR 1
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WORKING SCIENTIFICALLY
Pupils should be able to observe closely and use simple
equipment.
Pupils should be able to perform simple tests.
Pupils should be able to identify and classify.
Pupils should be able to record findings using basic units,
drawings, diagrams, photographs, tables, charts and displays.
YEAR 1
PLANTS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Identify and name a variety of common plants.
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Describe the basic structure of a variety of common plants
including roots, stem, leaves and flower.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Use local environment to study plants.
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Make collections.
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Effects of weather on plants.
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Be able to name common plants and understand deciduous and
evergreen.
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Become familiar with plant structure through labeling, drawing and
use of photographs and models.
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Compare how plants grow in different habitats.
YEAR 1
ANIMALS INCLUDING HUMANS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Name a variety of common animals that are birds, fish, amphibians,
reptiles, mammals and invertebrates.
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Identify animals that are carnivores, herbivores and omnivores.
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Compare the structure of common animals and how they are suited
to their environment.
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Identify and name basic parts of the human body.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Use the local environment to study animals. Understand that the
animals studied must be shown care.
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Nature walks and effects of weather on animals. Relate to Charles
Darwin.
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Begin to learn the classification of animals.
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Learn the names of the main body parts.
YEAR 1
EVERYDAY MATERIALS
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STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Pupils should be taught to distinguish between an object and the material from which it is
made.
Identify and name a variety of everyday materials, including wood, plastic, glass, metal,
water, and rock
Describe the simple physical properties of a variety of everyday materials.
Compare and group together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of their simple
physical properties.
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NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
Pupils should explore, name, discuss and raise and answer questions about everyday
materials.
Pupils should investigate properties such as: hard/soft; stretchy/stiff; shiny/dull;
rough/smooth; bendy/not bendy; waterproof/not waterproof; absorbent/not absorbent;
opaque/transparent.
Pupils should explore and experiment with a wide variety of materials, not only those
listed in the programme of study, but including for example: brick, paper, fabrics, elastic,
foil.
Pupils might work scientifically by: performing simple tests to explore questions, for
example: ‘What is the best material for an umbrella? … for lining a dog basket? … for
curtains? … for a bookshelf? … for a gymnast’s leotard?’
YEAR 1
A new area has been introduced called “Seasonal Changes”
It is intended that pupils will record and become aware of the changes
that take place during the different seasons.
This should continue throughout the year to help build the children's’
understanding about seasons the physical and life processes that
can occur during each season.
YEAR 2
PLANTS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Describe how seeds and bulbs grow into mature plants.
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Understand that plants need water, light and a suitable temperature
to grow.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Use the local environment to study plants.
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Understand the process of reproduction in plants in regard to
growth.
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Understand that seeds and bulbs need water to grow but not light
as they have a store of food inside them.
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Understand the effects of temperature on plants.
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Grow a variety of plants and record results.
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Compare the growth of plants under different conditions.
YEAR 2
ALL LIVING THINGS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Understand the difference between things that are living and things
that have never been alive.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Understand organism and the life processes common to all living
things.
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Differences between the life processes of plants and animals.
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Understand whether things are living, dead or non-living.
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Introduce the idea that all living things are made up of cells.
YEAR 2
ANIMALS INCLUDING HUMANS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Understand that animals, including humans, have offspring which
grow into adults.
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Understand the basic needs for survival.
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Understand about exercise and the right diet for fitness and growth.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Introduce the process of reproduction and growth.
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Understand the stages of growth in animals and humans.
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Explore how animals should be kept by humans including pets, zoo
animals and farm animals.
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Understand how animals look after their young.
YEAR 2
EVERYDAY MATERIALS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Distinguish between an object and the material from which it is
made.
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Name a variety of everyday materials.
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Understand the properties of everyday materials.
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Be able to group materials by their properties.
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Understand how the shape of solid objects can be changed.
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Compare the uses of different materials.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Investigate properties such as hard, soft, stretchy, shiny, rough,
bendy, transparent.
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Study materials such as brick, sand, paper, flour, butter, milk, soil.
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Compare materials around the school and at home.
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Give examples of how different materials are used.
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Study biographies of Dunlop, MacKintosh, MacAdam.
YEAR 2
HABITATS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Understand that living things live in a habitat.
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Understand how different habitats provide for different plants and
animals.
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Identify plants and animals from different habitats including
microhabitats.
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Understand how animals obtain food from plants and other
animals. Simple food chains.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Use the local environment to study habitats.
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How living things depend on each other.
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Be able to construct simple food chains that include humans.
LOWER KEY STAGE 2 – YS 3 & 4
The principal focus of science teaching in lower key stage 2 is to
enable pupils to broaden their scientific view of the world around
them. They should ask their own questions about what they
observe and make some decisions about which types of science
enquiry are likely to be the best way to answer questions. They
should be able to carry out simple comparative and fair tests. They
should draw simple conclusions and use some scientific language.
Working scientifically must always be taught through and the
clearly related to substantive science content in the programme of
study.
Pupils should read and spell scientific vocabulary correctly and
with confidence.
YEAR 3
PLANTS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Identify and describe function of different parts of a flowering plant.
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Explore the requirements of plants for life and growth.
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Investigate how water is transported within plants.
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Explore the life cycle of a plant.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Introduce the idea that plants can make their own food.
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Compare the effect of different factors on plant growth.
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Seed dispersal
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Role of roots and stem in nutrition and support, leaves for nutrition
and flowers for reproduction.
YEAR 3
ANIMALS, INCLUDING HUMANS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Identify that animals, including humans, need nutrition as they
cannot make their own food.
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Identify that humans and some animals have skeletons and
muscles for support, protection and movement.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Importance of nutrition including a balanced diet.
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Main body parts associated with the skeleton and different parts
have different functions.
YEAR 3
ROCKS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Compare and group together different kinds of rocks.
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Describe how fossils are formed.
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Recognise that soil is made from rocks and organic matter.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Explore different kinds of rocks and soils from the local
environment.
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Use of rock in buildings and gravestones.
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Explore if rocks have grains or crystals.
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Investigate fossils found in sedimentary rocks.
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What happens when rocks are rubbed together.
YEAR 3
FORCES AND MAGNETS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Be aware that some forces need contact between two objects but
magnetic forces can act at a distance.
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Magnets attract and repel and attract some materials.
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Identify magnetic materials.
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Describe magnets as having two poles.
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Predict whether magnets will attract or repel.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Explore different types of magnet such as bar, ring, button,
horseshoe.
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Investigate the strength of different magnets.
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Suggest creative uses for different magnets.
YEAR 3
LIGHT
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Be aware that light is reflected from surfaces.
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Find patterns that determine the size of shadows.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Investigate mirrors and other reflective surfaces.
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What happens to a shadow when the light source moves or the
object changes.
YEAR 4
ALL LIVING THINGS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Identify and name a variety of living things.
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Use keys to assign living things to groups.
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Recognise that environments can change and this can pose a
danger to living things.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Look at how the local habitat changes throughout the year.
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Pupils should be able to put animals into groups such as
invertebrates, vertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and
mammals.
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Plants to be put into groups such as flowering plants, nonflowering plants, ferns, mosses.
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Explore the human impact on environments.
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Minibeast research.
YEAR 4
ANIMALS, INCLUDING HUMANS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Simple functions of the basic parts of the digestive system in
humans.
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Different teeth in humans and their function.
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Food chains, identifying producers, predators and prey.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Know about parts of the human digestive system such as mouth,
tongue, teeth, oesophagus, stomach and intestine.
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Compare teeth from a carnivore and herbivore.
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How to look after teeth.
YEAR 4
STATES OF MATTER
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Group materials into solids, liquids or gas.
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Change of state through heating and cooling and measure the
temperatures when this happens.
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Evaporation and condensation.
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The water cycle.
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Investigate rate of evaporation with temperature.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Simple descriptions of the states of matter.
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Water as a solid, liquid and gas.
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Avoid using heating associated with chemical change i.e. burning.
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Explore the effect of temperature on different materials.
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Investigate effect of temperature on washing drying or snowmen
melting.
YEAR 4
SOUND
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Identify how sounds are made.
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Find patterns between the pitch of a sound and features of the
object that produced it.
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Find patterns between the volume of a sound and the strength of
the vibration that produced it.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Explore how sounds are made in different musical instruments.
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Find out how pitch and volume can be changed.
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How to produce the best insulator of sound.
YEAR 4
ELECTRICITY
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Identify appliances that run on electricity.
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Construct a simple series circuit including cells, wires, bulbs,
switches and buzzers.
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Complete circuits.
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Switches to control a circuit.
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Conductors and insulators.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Construct circuits to create simple devices.
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Be able to draw a circuit but not necessarily using conventional
circuit symbols.
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Working safely with electricity.
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How to make bulbs brighter.
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What materials make the best conductors of electricity.
SCIENCE – UPPER KEY STAGE TWO
WORKING SCIENTIFICALLY
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Planning scientific enquiries.
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Using scientific equipment.
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Recording data and results in a variety of ways.
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Making predictions.
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Using simple models to describe scientific ideas.
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Reporting and presenting findings.
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Identifying scientific evidence.
EXAMPLES OF NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Explore ideas and raise questions.
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Comparatives, fair testing, reliability, variables.
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Keys.
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Recognise secondary sources.
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Use relevant scientific language.
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Talk about how scientific ideas have developed.
YEAR 5
ALL LIVING THINGS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Explain the difference in the life cycle of a mammal, an amphibian, an
insect and a bird.
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Describe the life process of reproduction in some plants and animals.
HUMANS – Describe the changes as humans develop from birth to old age.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Raise questions about the local environment.
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Observe life-cycle changes in a variety of living things.
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Study the work of naturalists such as David Attenborough.
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Different types of reproduction including sexual and asexual.
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Try to grow new plants from seeds, stem, root cuttings, tubers, bulbs.
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Observe changes in animals over a period of time.
HUMANS – Timeline of stages in the growth of humans, including puberty
and study gestation periods.
YEAR 5
PROPERTIES AND CHANGES OF MATERIALS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Compare materials through their hardness, solubility, transparency,
conductivity and magnetism.
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Dissolving, solutions and recovering a substance from a solution.
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Solids, liquids and gases. Filtering, sieving and evaporating.
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Use of everyday materials including metals, wood and plastic.
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Reversible changes.
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Irreversible changes including burning and the action of acid on
bicarbonate of soda.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Rusting and other reactions.
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How chemists such as Spencer Silver & Ruth Benerito make new
materials.
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Which material would make a warm jacket.
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How chemical changes impact on our lives.
YEAR 5
EARTH AND SPACE
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Movement of the Earth and other planets in the solar system.
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Movement of the Moon relative to the Earth.
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Sun, Earth and Moon as spherical bodies.
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Day and night.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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How the solar system has developed.
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Understand how the geocentric model gave way to the heliocentric
model.
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Consider the work of Ptolemy, Alhazen and Copernicus.
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Shadow clocks and sundials.
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Stonehenge might have been an astronomical clock.
YEAR 5
FORCES
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Gravity.
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Air resistance, water resistance and friction.
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Understand that force and motion can be transferred through
mechanical devices such as gears, pulleys, levers and springs.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Forces that make things begin to move, get faster, slow down.
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Effects of friction on movement.
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Parachutes and sycamore seeds.
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Levers, pulleys and simple machines.
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The work of Galileo and Isaac Newton.
YEAR 6
ALL LIVING THINGS
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Classification of living things including micro-organisms, plants
and animals.
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Reasons for classifying plants and animals.
HUMANS
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Human circulatory system.
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Impact of diet, exercise and drugs.
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Transportation of nutrients and water.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Vertebrates and invertebrates. Work of Carl Linnaeus.
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Keys and habitats.
HUMANS
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Skeleton, muscles and digestive system.
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How to keep the body healthy.
YEAR 6
EVOLUTION AND INHERITANCE
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Living things changing over time and fossils providing information.
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Offspring of the same kind but not identical to parents.
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How animals and plants adapt to suit their environment.
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Adaption leading to evolution.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Characteristics passed from parents.
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Different breeds of dog with examples such as Labradoodles.
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Giraffes neck and fur on arctic fox.
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Work of Mary Anning, Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin.
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How animals adapt to live in extreme conditions.
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Tendrils on climbing plants and bright coloured and scented
flowers.
YEAR 6
LIGHT
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Light travels in straight lines.
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How objects can be seen.
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Shadows and how the size of shadows can change.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Light sources, reflection and refraction.
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Dispersion of light. Rainbows and colours on soap bubbles.
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Why objects look bent in water.
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Periscopes.
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Shadow puppets.
YEAR 6
ELECTRICITY
STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS
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Associate the brightness of a bulb or the volume of a buzzer with
the number and voltage of cells used.
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Give reasons for variations in how components function.
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Use recognised symbols when representing a simple circuit in a
diagram.
NON-STATUTORY GUIDANCE
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Construct simple circuits.
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Only series circuits not parallel circuits.
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Identifying the effect of changing one component at a time in a
circuit.