Lower key stage 2 - years 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 do this through exploring, talking about, testing and developing ideas about everyday phenomena and the relationships between living things and familiar environments, and by beginning to develop their ideas about functions, relationships and interactions. They should ask their own questions about what they observe and make some decisions about which types of scientific enquiry are likely to be the best ways of answering them, including observing changes over time, noticing patterns, grouping and classifying things, carrying out simple comparative and fair tests and finding things out using secondary sources of information. They should draw simple conclusions and use some scientific language, first, to talk about and, later, to write about what they have found out.
'Working scientifically' is described separately at the beginning of the programme of study and will be taught throughout the curriculum and embedded alongside the knowledge-based content outlined. Throughout the notes and guidance, examples show how scientific methods and skills might be linked to specific elements of the content.
Pupils should read and spell scientific vocabulary correctly and with confidence, using their growing word reading and spelling knowledge.
Working scientifically
| Lower key stage 2 programme of study (statutory requirements) |
|
Working scientifically
During years 3 and 4, pupils should be taught to use the following practical scientific methods, processes and skills through the teaching of the programme of study content:
- asking relevant questions and using different types of scientific enquiries to answer them
- setting up simple practical enquiries, comparative and fair tests
- making systematic and careful observations and, where appropriate, taking accurate measurements using standard units, using a range of equipment, including thermometers and data loggers
- gathering, recording, classifying and presenting data in a variety of ways to help in answering questions
- recording findings using simple scientific language, drawings, labelled diagrams, keys, bar charts, and tables
- reporting on findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations, displays or presentations of results and conclusions
- using results to draw simple conclusions, make predictions for new values, suggest improvements and raise further questions
- identifying differences, similarities or changes related to simple scientific ideas and processes
- using straightforward scientific evidence to answer questions or to support their findings.
|
Year 3
| Year 3 programme of study (statutory requirements) |
|
Plants
Pupils should be taught to:
- identify and describe the functions of different parts of flowering plants: roots, stem, leaves and flowers
- explore the requirements of plants for life and growth (air, light, water, nutrients from soil, and room to grow) and how they vary from plant to plant
- investigate the way in which water is transported within plants
- explore the part that flowers play in the life cycle of flowering plants, including pollination, seed formation and seed dispersal.
|
|
Animals, including humans
Pupils should be taught to:
- identify that animals, including humans, need the right types and amount of nutrition, and that they cannot make their own food; they get nutrition from what they eat
- identify that humans and some animals have skeletons and muscles for support, protection and movement.
|
|
Rocks
Pupils should be taught to:
- compare and group together different kinds of rocks on the basis of their appearance and simple physical properties
- describe in simple terms how fossils are formed when things that have lived are trapped within rock
- recognise that soils are made from rocks and organic matter.
|
|
Light
Pupils should be taught to:
- notice that light is reflected from surfaces
- find patterns that determine the size of shadows.
|
|
Forces and magnets
Pupils should be taught to:
- notice that some forces need contact between two objects, but magnetic forces can act at a distance
- observe how magnets attract or repel each other and attract some materials and not others
- compare and group together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of whether they are attracted to a magnet, and identify some magnetic materials
- describe magnets as having two poles
- predict whether two magnets will attract or repel each other, depending on which poles are facing.
|
Year 4
| Year 4 programme of study (statutory requirements) |
|
All living things
Pupils should be taught to:
- identify and name a variety of living things (plants and animals) in the local and wider environment, using classification keys to assign them to groups
- recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers to living things.
|
|
Animals, including humans
Pupils should be taught to:
- describe the simple functions of the basic parts of the digestive system in humans
- identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions
- construct and interpret a variety of food chains, identifying producers, predators and prey.
|
|
States of matter
Pupils should be taught to:
- compare and group materials together, according to whether they are solids, liquids or gases
- observe that some materials change state when they are heated or cooled, and measure or research the temperature at which this happens in degrees Celsius (°C)
- identify the part played by evaporation and condensation in the water cycle and associate the rate of evaporation with temperature.
|
|
Sound
Pupils should be taught to:
- identify how sounds are made, associating some of them with something vibrating
- find patterns between the pitch of a sound and features of the object that produced it
- find patterns between the volume of a sound and the strength of the vibrations that produced it.
|
|
Electricity
Pupils should be taught to:
- identify common appliances that run on electricity
- construct a simple series electrical circuit, identifying and naming its basic parts, including cells, wires, bulbs, switches and buzzers
- identify whether or not a lamp will light in a simple series circuit, based on whether or not the lamp is part of a complete loop with a battery
- recognise that a switch opens and closes a circuit and associate this with whether or not a lamp lights in a simple series circuit
- recognise some common conductors and insulators, and associate metals with being good conductors.
|
Upper key stage 2 – years 5-6
The principal focus of science teaching in upper key stage 2 is to enable pupils to develop a deeper understanding of a wide range of scientific ideas. They should do this through exploring and talking about their ideas; asking their own questions about scientific phenomena; and analysing functions, relationships and interactions more systematically. At upper key stage 2, they should encounter more abstract ideas and begin to recognise how these ideas help them to understand and predict how the world operates. They should also begin to recognise that scientific ideas change and develop over time. They should select the most appropriate ways to answer science questions using different types of scientific enquiry, including observing changes over different periods of time, noticing patterns, grouping and classifying things, carrying out comparative and fair tests and finding things out using a wide range of secondary sources of information. Pupils should draw conclusions based on their data and observations, use evidence to justify their ideas, and use their scientific knowledge and understanding to explain their findings.
'Working and thinking scientifically' is described separately at the beginning of the programme of study, but must always be taught through and clearly related to substantive science content in the programme of study. Throughout the notes and guidance, examples show how scientific methods and skills might be linked to specific elements of the content.
Pupils should read, spell and pronounce scientific vocabulary correctly.
Working scientifically
| Upper key stage 2 programme of study (statutory requirements) |
|
Working scientifically
During years 5 and 6, pupils should be taught to use the following practical scientific methods, processes and skills through the teaching of the programme of study content:
- planning different types of scientific enquiries to answer questions, including recognising and controlling variables where necessary
- taking measurements, using a range of scientific equipment, with increasing accuracy and precision
- recording data and results of increasing complexity using scientific diagrams and labels, classification keys, tables, and bar and line graphs
- using test results to make predictions to set up further comparative and fair tests
- using simple models to describe scientific ideas
- reporting and presenting findings from enquiries, including conclusions, causal relationships and explanations of results, in oral and written forms such as displays and other presentations
- identifying scientific evidence that has been used to support or refute ideas or arguments.
|
Year 5
| Year 5 programme of study (statutory requirements) |
|
All living things
Pupils should be taught to:
- explain the differences in the life cycles of a mammal, an amphibian, an insect and a bird
- describe the life process of reproduction in some plants and animals.
|
|
Animals, including humans
Pupils should be taught to:
- describe the changes as humans develop from birth to old age.
|
|
Properties and changes of materials
Pupils should be taught to:
- compare and group together everyday materials based on evidence from comparative and fair tests, including their hardness, solubility, transparency, conductivity (electrical and thermal), and response to magnets
- understand that some materials will dissolve in liquid to form a solution, and describe how to recover a substance from a solution
- use knowledge of solids, liquids and gases to decide how mixtures might be separated, including through filtering, sieving and evaporating
- give reasons, based on evidence from comparative and fair tests, for the particular uses of everyday materials, including metals, wood and plastic
- demonstrate that dissolving, mixing and changes of state are reversible changes
- explain that some changes result in the formation of new materials, and that this kind of change is not usually reversible, including changes associated with burning and the action of acid on bicarbonate of soda.
|
|
Earth and space
Pupils should be taught to:
- describe the movement of the Earth, and other planets, relative to the Sun in the solar system
- describe the movement of the Moon relative to the Earth
- describe the Sun, Earth and Moon as approximately spherical bodies
- use the idea of the Earth's rotation to explain day and night.
|
|
Forces
Pupils should be taught to:
- explain that unsupported objects fall towards the Earth because of the force of gravity acting between the Earth and the falling object
- identify the effects of air resistance, water resistance and friction, that act between moving surfaces
- understand that force and motion can be transferred through mechanical devices such as gears, pulleys, levers and springs.
|
Year 6
| Year 6 programme of study (statutory requirements) |
|
All living things
Pupils should be taught to:
- describe how living things are classified into broad groups according to common observable characteristics and based on similarities and differences, including micro-organisms, plants and animals
- give reasons for classifying plants and animals based on specific characteristics.
|
|
Animals including humans
Pupils should taught to:
- identify and name the main parts of the human circulatory system, and explain the functions of the heart, blood vessels and blood
- recognise the impact of diet, exercise, drugs and lifestyle on the way their bodies function
- describe the ways in which nutrients and water are transported within animals, including humans.
|
|
Evolution and inheritance
Pupils should be taught to:
- recognise that living things have changed over time and that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago
- recognise that living things produce offspring of the same kind, but normally offspring vary and are not identical to their parents
- identify how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment in different ways and that adaptation may lead to evolution.
|
|
Light
Pupils should be taught to:
- understand that light appears to travel in straight lines
- use the idea that light travels in straight lines to explain that objects are seen because they give out or reflect light into the eye
- explain that we see things because light travels from light sources to our eyes or from light sources to objects and then to our eyes
- use the idea that light travels in straight lines to explain why shadows have the same shape as the objects that cast them, and to predict the size of shadows when the position of the light source changes.
|
|
Electricity
Pupils should be taught to:
- associate the brightness of a lamp or the volume of a buzzer with the number and voltage of cells used in the circuit
- compare and give reasons for variations in how components function, including the brightness of bulbs, the loudness of buzzers and the on/off position of switches
- use recognised symbols when representing a simple circuit in a diagram.
|
