Science Curriculum Overview

EYFS

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Year 6

Understand some important process and changes in the natural world around them including the season and changing states of matter.

Everyday Materials:

Naming and sorting materials and their properties.

Everyday Materials:

Further exploring the properties of materials – thermal insulation. What makes materials suitable for different purposes?

States of Matter:

Compare and group materials by solid, liquid and gas.

Observe that some materials change when heated or cooled and investigate the temperatures for these changes.

Identify the part played by evaporation and condensation in the water cycle.

Properties and changes of materials
Compare and group together everyday materials based on evidence from comparative and fair tests.
Investigate how solutions are formed through dissolving of solids into liquids.
Use knowledge of solids, liquids and gases to decide how mixtures might be separated.
Demonstrate that dissolving, mixing and changes of state are reversible changes.

Investigate and explain the difference between reversible and irreversible changes.

Making observations and drawing pictures of animals and plants. To know some similarities and differences between the natural world around them and contrasting environments, drawing on their experiences and what has been read in class.

Animals including humans:

Identifying and naming parts of the human body.

Identifying and naming common mammals, fish, reptiles, birds and amphibians.

Plants:

Observing plants and the differences between them, including flowers and trees. Make predictions about how plants grow.

Living Things:

How are we similar and different from each other – gathering data and observations.

MRS NERG: What makes something ‘living’?

Animals including humans:

 Ordering the human lifecycle, learning about healthy eating and looking after our teeth. What happens to our bodies during exercise?

Plants:

Naming parts of plant and learning about pollination. Investigating best conditions for plant growth.

Habitats:

Exploring habitats in our local area.

Creating simple food chains. How are animals suited to their habitat?

Animals including humans:

Revising what happens to our bodies during exercising – taking our pulses. Herbivores, carnivores and omnivores.

What happens to our food when we’ve eaten it?

Plants:

Identify and describe the functions of different parts of flowering plants.

Explore the what plants need to grow.

Investigate how water is transported within plants.

Living things and their environment:

Use classification keys to group living things – eg vertebrates/invertebrates.

Give reasons for classifying plants and animals based on specific characteristics.

Explore how environments are constantly changing and dangers posed to specific habitats.

Construct and interpret food chains.

Animals including humans:

Describe the simple functions of the digestive system.

Identify types of teeth and their functions.

Find out what damages teeth and compare the teeth of carnivores and herbivores.

Living things in their environment

Describe the life cycles common to a variety of animals, including humans (birth, growth, development, reproduction, death), and to a variety of plants (growth, reproduction and death).

Animals and humans

Identify and name the main parts of the human circulatory system, and explain the functions of the heart, blood vessels and blood (including the pulse and clotting).

Recognise the impact of diet, exercise, drugs and lifestyle on the way human bodies function.

Describe the changes as humans develop from birth to old age.

Evolution and inheritance:

Explore the theory of evolution, beginning with the work of Charles Darwin. Think about inheritance for parent to offspring and explore adaptations that help animals to survive. Why do some animals become extinct?

The Human Body:

Explore the structure and work of the heart.
Research major organs of the human body.

What is blood?

Investigate – how does our respiratory system respond to exercise?

Living things:

What is a cell?
How do bacteria spread?

Explore classifying living things using the Linnean system and five kingdoms.

Light:

Observe light, shadow and reflection. Look for patterns in shadows when the light source moves.

Forces and Magnets:
Notice that some forces need contact between surfaces, but others act at a distance. Observe how magnets attract or repel each other, and only attract some materials. Investigate the strength of different magnets.

Sound:

Identify how sounds are made, associating some of them with something vibrating.

Recognise that sounds get fainter as the distance from the sound’s source increases.

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:

Identify common appliances that run on electricity.

Construct a simple series electrical circuit.
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.

Space:

Explain that unsupported objects fall towards the Earth because of the force of gravity acting between the Earth and the falling object.

Investigate forces, developing understanding of drag forces.
Explore how mechanical devices such as gears and pulleys can transfer forces.

Describe movement of Earth in relation to the sun; the moon relevant to the earth.

Describe the Earth, Moon and Sun as approximately spherical bodies.

Explore how Earth’s rotation  explains day/night

Light:

Investigate and prove that light travels in a straight line.

Explore how the eye detects light. Research the work of Newton and investigate the colours that white light contains.

Electricity:

What makes a circuit complete? Creating our own switches to turn components on and off.

Investigate – how can we change the brightness of a lamp?

Are parallel and series circuits the same?

Recognise some environments that are different to the one in which they live.

Understand the effect of changing seasons on the natural world around them

Season Changes:

Observing changes in the world around them through the course of the year. Autumn/Winter Winter/Spring Spring/Summer

Rocks:

Compare and group rocks on the basis of physical properties; link these properties to the formation of some rock types

Describe how fossils are made.

Explore different soils and identify the differences between them.

Explore and describe the world around them.

Make simple observations about what they see, hear and feel while outside.

Children engage in open-ended activity, the find ways to solve problems/find new ways to do things/test their ideas. Comment and ask questions about aspects of the familiar world around them. Use senses to explore the world around them. Make links and notice patterns in their experience. Answer how and why questions about their experiences. Build up vocabulary.

Ask simple questions and recognise that they can be answered in different ways.

Observe closely, using simple equipment.

Perform simple tests.

Identify and classify.

Use their observations and ideas to suggest answers to questions.

Gather and record data to help in answering questions.

Ask relevant questions

Set up simple practical enquiries and comparative and fair tests.

Make careful observations and accurate measurements using standard units, using a range of equipment.

Gather, record, classify and present data in a variety of ways to help in answering questions.

Record findings using simple scientific language.

Report on findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations.

Ask relevant questions

Set up simple practical enquiries and comparative and fair tests.

Make accurate measurements using standard units, using a range of equipment.

Gather, record, classify and present data in a variety of ways to help in answering questions.

Record findings using scientific language, drawings, labelled diagrams, bar charts and tables.

Report on findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations, displays or presentations of results and conclusions.

Use results to draw simple conclusions and suggest improvements, new questions and predictions for setting up further tests.

Identify differences, similarities or changes related to simple, scientific ideas and processes.

Use straightforward, scientific evidence to answer questions or to support their findings.

Plan enquiries, including recognising and controlling variables where necessary.

Use appropriate techniques, apparatus, and materials during fieldwork and laboratory work.

Take measurements, using a range of scientific equipment, with increasing accuracy and precision.

Record data and results of increasing complexity using scientific diagrams and labels, classification keys, tables, bar and line graphs, and models.

Report findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations of results, explanations involving causal relationships, and conclusions.

Present findings in written form, displays and other presentations.

Use test results to make predictions to set up further comparative and fair tests.

Use simple models to describe scientific ideas, identifying scientific evidence that has been used to support or refute ideas or arguments.

Plan enquiries, including recognising and controlling variables where necessary.

Use appropriate techniques, apparatus, and materials during fieldwork and laboratory work.

Take measurements, using a range of scientific equipment, with increasing accuracy and precision.

Record data and results of increasing complexity using scientific diagrams and labels, classification keys, tables, bar and line graphs, and models.

Report findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations of results, explanations involving causal relationships, and conclusions.

Present findings in written form, displays and other presentations.

Use test results to make predictions to set up further comparative and fair tests.