Harlowbury
Primary School
"Science is valuable because it meshes with all our lives and allows us to channel and use our spontaneous curiosity." Professor S Greenfield at The Royal Institute
We aim to develop young scientists who ask, test and evaluate questions about the world around them. Learning begins with 'hooks' designed to excite and inspire learners and to incite their curiosity. Typically these are practical, open-ended mini-investigations that can be developed into focused enquiries depending on the interests of the learners. Children take ownership of the enquiry process by designing and then carrying out tests to find answers to their own questions.
By rooting learning in real-life investigations, learning is contextualised and purposeful. Children benefit from opportunities to experience scientific concepts through practical experiments that utilise a rich array of specialist scientific equipment including digital microscopes and data-loggers. We want to make science tangible and real. Cross-curricular links are key to embed and enhance learning. Science provides opportunities for children to generate ‘real’ data for use in data handling.
A rich and broad curriculum ensures that teaching and learning fosters core skills:
- ü Posing questions
- ü Developing hypotheses
- ü Designing a fair test
- ü Conducting investigations accurately
- ü Analysing data
- ü Drawing and evaluating scientific conclusions