Science
At Herons Dale, Science encourages pupils to be curious about the world around them. Through an inclusive and practical curriculum, pupils explore living things, materials and physical processes, developing their awareness, understanding and confidence from their individual starting points.
Our Science curriculum is being reviewed and refined to strengthen the sequence of learning and ensure that content is meaningful and accessible across our pathways. Learning draws on Early Years Understanding the World and appropriately adapted National Curriculum content. Working scientifically is woven through pupils’ experiences, from noticing and responding to changes to asking questions, making predictions and carrying out investigations.
Pupils encounter science through sensory exploration, practical activities, outdoor learning and everyday experiences. They explore sound, light, movement, magnets, changing materials, rocks and soil, animals, weather and seasonal change. Repetition and opportunities to revisit learning help pupils build familiarity, recognise patterns and apply their understanding in different contexts.
Science is adapted so that every pupil can participate meaningfully. Real objects, visual support, symbols, switches, adapted equipment and personalised adult guidance enable pupils to explore, make choices and communicate their responses. For some pupils, progress is demonstrated through increasing awareness, anticipation, purposeful actions and sustained engagement. Others develop increasingly detailed scientific knowledge and independence in investigating and explaining what they observe.
Through Science, we aim to develop pupils who show curiosity, explore with growing confidence and use their learning to understand and interact with the world around them.
What Pupils Learn
Across the school, pupils are supported to:
- explore objects, materials and natural phenomena through their senses
- notice and respond to changes in their environment
- recognise that their actions can make something happen
- anticipate familiar events and repeat actions to explore an effect
- observe, match, sort and compare objects and materials
- explore animals, their features, similarities and differences
- experience weather, seasonal changes, light and dark
- investigate sound, movement, pushes, pulls and magnetic attraction
- explore the properties of materials and how they can change
- make choices, ask questions and predict what might happen
- participate in practical investigations and use equipment with increasing independence
- communicate observations through responses, objects, photographs, symbols, speech, marks or writing
- revisit experiences and apply their understanding in different situations.
Cultural Capital and Enrichment
Science broadens pupils’ experiences by helping them explore the natural and physical world beyond their immediate routines. Learning in the school grounds provides opportunities to experience weather, notice seasonal changes and explore natural materials in meaningful contexts.
Practical experiences bring scientific ideas to life. Exploring rocks, soil, sand and fossils, observing animal similarities and differences, investigating shadows and discovering how objects move enable pupils to encounter things they may not otherwise experience.
Links with outdoor learning and other curriculum areas provide opportunities to revisit scientific ideas. Pupils are encouraged to notice science in everyday experiences, including changing materials during cookery, hearing sounds, using light sources and exploring how familiar objects work. These connections help pupils recognise that science is part of their daily lives.
Preparing for Adulthood and British Values
Through Science, pupils develop curiosity, communication, choice-making and problem-solving skills. Practical exploration encourages pupils to try things, notice what happens and communicate their observations or preferences.
Learning about materials, temperature, weather and the natural world supports pupils to make sense of everyday experiences. Pupils develop their ability to use equipment appropriately, follow supported routines and participate safely in practical activities. These experiences contribute to growing independence at school, at home and in the community.
Shared investigations provide opportunities to take turns, cooperate and listen to others. Pupils are encouraged to value different contributions and recognise that people may communicate their ideas in different ways. Making choices about resources and activities supports individual liberty, whilst agreed routines promote responsibility and respect.
Exploring living things and the environment also encourages care for the world around us. Pupils develop an understanding that their actions can affect other people, animals and shared spaces.
How Science Develops Across Our Pathways
Discoverers
Our youngest and most complex learners encounter science through play, sensory exploration and communication-rich experiences. Pupils explore natural materials, light, sound, movement and changes in their immediate environment. Reception pupils access these experiences through Early Years Understanding the World.
Adults use familiar routines, repetition and close observation to recognise pupils’ responses and support engagement. The emphasis is on developing awareness, shared attention, curiosity and purposeful interaction. Pupils may demonstrate learning by looking towards an object, responding to a texture, anticipating an event or repeating an action to create an effect.
Explorers
Pupils access Science through practical, sensory experiences that support exploration, realisation, anticipation, persistence and initiation. Revised units include rocks and soil, sound, light, day and night, seasonal experiences, changing materials, pushes and pulls, magnets, and animal similarities and differences.
Pupils are supported to notice contrasts, explore cause and effect and discover that their actions can create changes. They may activate a switch, move an object, explore a material, select a resource or direct an adult through their preferred communication method.
Learning is repeated and adapted to help pupils build familiarity and confidence. Progress may be seen through longer engagement, increasingly intentional actions, anticipation, clearer choices and greater independence. Objects, photographs, symbols and adult observations help capture pupils’ participation and responses.
Adventurers and Voyagers
Pupils develop their scientific understanding through practical exploration and increasingly structured activities. They are supported to observe closely, match and sort, compare features and notice patterns or changes.
Adults model relevant vocabulary and help pupils ask questions, make simple predictions and explore what happens. Repeated investigations enable pupils to connect actions with outcomes and begin to communicate what they have discovered.
Pupils record and share their learning through objects, photographs, symbols, speech, marks or simple written work. Opportunities to revisit ideas in different contexts help them develop confidence and apply their understanding more independently.
Pioneers
Formal learners develop scientific knowledge and enquiry skills through appropriately adapted National Curriculum content. Practical investigations help pupils deepen their understanding of living things, materials and physical processes.
Pupils develop their ability to ask questions, make predictions, observe carefully and use equipment to explore scientific ideas. They are supported to compare results, recognise patterns and explain what their observations show.
A growing scientific vocabulary enables pupils to describe their learning with increasing accuracy. Pupils record findings in accessible ways and are encouraged to use their knowledge to explain familiar events, solve problems and make connections across different contexts.
Navigators
Pupils in the Navigator cohort access Science through a flexible combination of pathway approaches matched to their learning needs, communication, regulation and readiness. Practical exploration, clear routines and meaningful questions help pupils engage successfully and experience achievement.
Visual support, repetition, choice and personalised adult guidance enable pupils to participate at an appropriate level. Activities may range from sensory exploration and cause-and-effect experiences to structured investigations and explanations.
As pupils become more secure, they are encouraged to sustain attention, cooperate with others, communicate observations and investigate with increasing independence. Learning connects scientific ideas with everyday experiences, helping pupils recognise the relevance of science to their own lives.