The science curriculum at Scissett Middle School is designed to inspire a lifelong curiosity in students about themselves, the world, the universe and it’s mysteries. It should empower our students so that they can evaluate information presented and form their own ideas about how and why things happen using critical thinking. The science curriculum should allow our students to make informed decisions through life, whether this be based on medical advice, running a home and thinking about electrical appliances or the wider benefit of our world, thinking about climate change and global warming.
The aim of our curriculum:
At Scissett Middle School, we strive for a quality science education for all, which encompasses:
The Knowledge:
-
A cumulative, spiral, curriculum that allows our students knowledge to grow and develop from year 6 to year 8.
-
High academic standards through a challenging curriculum that is designed for the progress of all students.
-
Cross curricula links, understanding that science and the skills we teach run through many other subjects.
The Skills:
-
Embedding practical opportunities to develop thinking. Practical opportunities encourage students to think and foster curiosity.
-
A knowledge of how to learn through the teaching of metacognitive skills and thinking, fostering and improving students resilience, giving them confidence to challenge their knowledge and understanding.
-
The development of SMSC, literacy, oracy and numeracy skills throughout our curriculum.
The Impact:
-
Students who are able to have a positive impact within our schools, communities and globally.
-
Developing a love of learning and science, whilst making sustained good or outstanding academic progress.
-
Preparation of students for progression beyond KMS and SMS, through acquisition of knowledge and skills.
Curriculum Overview:
Our students will engage with our curriculum through carefully planned lessons, to support, engage and teach our students. Our curriculum is designed around the national curriculum, arranged into the core principles of science organisms, genes, ecosystems, matter, reactions, forces, energy, waves and Earth science. Our curriculum is designed as a spiral allowing students to revisit their knowledge and build upon it within each year at SMS. The curriculum is designed in collaboration with Shelley College to ensure a smooth transition and solid grounding for their GCSEs. Our students are regularly given feedback on their progress, assessments are used formatively and summatively to allow our teachers to plan lessons for progress and students to reflect on their learning.
Working scientifically are a core foundation of our science curriculum, being woven into each unit of work, developing our students ability to conduct experiments, develop questions and interpret the results they collect. We also consider the role of sources and reliability in a wider world context.
Click here to see how British Moral Values are taught in Science.
Year 6
| Topic | Brief overview of content | |
|---|---|---|
| Autumn 1 | Introduction to Science | Students will learn vital skills that will be used throughout their science education, they will learn how to work safely, measure accurately, identify and use laboratory equipment including Bunsen Burners. |
| Matter | Students consider the role of particles and their arrangement in solids, liquids and gases. Students will investigate a range of reversible and irreversible changes, applying their knowledge of the science lab and safety rules into practice. | |
| Autumn 2 | Organisms | Students learn about the seven life processes (MRS GREN) and look in more depth at the digestive and circulatory systems. Students will start to build a picture of organisation starting at cells and developing into organisms. This unit of work also considers how to live a healthy lifestyle and the impacts of not doing so. |
| Spring 1 | Energy | Students will look at circuits and how they work, learning how to draw scientific diagrams and investigating the effects of changing components. |
| Waves | Students get the opportunity to explore the role of reflection in how we see and the effects of opaque objects in creating shadows. | |
| Spring 2 | Ecosystems | Students will look at different habitats and the organisms that live in them, including food chains. Students will learn to interpret and design keys for the classification of plants and animals. |
| Genes | Students will study the role of variation and adaptations on survival and how this leads to natural selection and evolution. Students will get to investigate the role of fossil evidence to support the theory of evolution. | |
| Summer 1 | Skills Across the Curriculum | These two weeks of lessons are designed to support SATs preparation, looking at maths and English in science, developing students’ knowledge of real world contexts for their scientific knowledge. |
| Summer 2 | Forces | Students get the chance to explore and investigate the role of forces within their lives, starting with considering contact and non-contact forces, measuring forces then investigating friction, drag, air resistance and parachutes, magnets and the role of machines in our lives. |
| Forensic and scientific enquiry | In this unit of work, students will apply the investigative skills they have learnt throughout year 6 into a unit studying forensic science, they will step into the world of a SOCO, investigating fibres with the microscopes, fingerprint analysis and the role of collecting evidence. |
Year 6 Science Progress Booklet
Year 7
| Topic | Brief overview of content | |
|---|---|---|
| Autumn 1 | Introduction to Science | Students will develop vital skills that will be used throughout their science education, including using and converting SI units, identifying and using laboratory equipment and plotting graphs. |
| Organisms | Students will start to explore the structure of living things based on organisation of cells, tissues, organs, organ systems and organisms, looking at the importance of specialised cells, using microscopes and looking in detail at how the skeleton and muscles work together. In this unit students will study reproduction, learning the organs in the reproductive systems, the impacts of puberty, the process of fertilisation and the importance of a healthy pregnancy. | |
| Autumn 2 | Energy | Students will study the seven energy stores and understand the law of conservation of energy, they will then take this further to consider efficiency. Students will revisit circuits, this time expanding their understanding to the role of series and parallel circuits and measuring current. Magnets will be explored in this unit of work, considering the role of electromagnets and magnets in navigation and motors. |
| Spring 1 | Matter | This units of work builds on the principles of states of matter from year 6, expanding it to investigate cooling curves. Students will get the opportunity to explore the periodic table, its structure and how to use chemical formula. Students will get the opportunity to investigate methods of separating mixtures, including chromatography and distillation. |
| Spring 2 | Forces | Students will get to develop the idea of resultant forces in this unit of work, understanding the difference between mass and weight. Students will learn how to calculate speed, plotting and interpreting distance time graphs and explaining relative motion. |
| Summer 1 | Genes and Ecosystems | Students will explore the concepts of continuous and discontinuous variation, applying their graph drawing skills. Students will develop their Year 6 knowledge of food chains to study food webs, the accumulation of toxins and using quadrats for observing ecosystems. |
| Summer 2 | Reactions | Students will identify acids and alkalis, investigate the effects of reacting acids and alkalis in neutralisation reactions and making soluble salts. |
| Earth Science | This unit explores our place in the solar system, causes of the seasons, the structure of the Earth, including the rock cycle and the use of ceramics, composites and polymers. |
Year 7 Science Progress Booklet
Year 8
| Topic | Brief overview of content | |
|---|---|---|
| Autumn 1 | Introduction to Science | Students will develop vital skills that will be used throughout their science education, including using and converting SI units, using laboratory equipment and interpreting graphs. |
| Waves | Students will explore transverse and longitudinal waves, looking in depth and sound and light waves. Students will look at how sound travels, how pitch and volume are changed and investigate the role of materials in the reflection and absorption of sound. Students will then investigate how light interacts with different media including reflection, refraction, the effects of lenses and how colour is seen. | |
| Autumn 2 | Matter | Students will further develop their Year 7 knowledge of the Periodic Table, looking at the law of conservation of mass, balancing equations and looking in depth at groups 1, 7 and 0 of the periodic table. |
| Spring 1 | Organisms | This unit builds on the Year 6 and 7 organisms topic, this time looking in depth at the respiratory and digestive system. Students will explain the role of gas exchange and the effects of smoking and exercise on the respiratory system. Students will explore the importance of a balanced diet and the consequences of not maintaining this, they will then explain how the digestive system is adapted to allow us to digest food effectively. |
| Spring 2 | Forces | In Year 8 students develop their knowledge of resultant forces, this time applying them to the principles of Hooke’s law, terminal velocity and drag. Students will then go on to understand and calculate pressure. |
| Summer 1 | Reactions | This unit of work investigates many types of chemical reactions, continuing to develop students working scientifically skills, the reactions explored include exothermic and endothermic, displacement, combustion and thermal decomposition. |
| Summer 2 | Ecosystems | Students will explore in this unit, the importance of plants and how they reproduce, this will explore the importance of plants within our ecosystems and the importance of maintaining seed banks for the conservation of species. Students will then take this further to an understanding of photosynthesis, relating this to the importance of plants on Earth. |
| Earth Science | This unit questions the role of humans on Earth and the effects we are having, getting students to explore how we can have a positive impact on the planet to change the effects of global warming and climate change. |
Year 8 Science Progress Booklet
Homework
Homework is set weekly by the science department for Years 7 and 8 at SMS. Science has two components, 5 spellings and tasks set on SENECA learning. The spellings are frequently used keywords based on the learning in lessons that week, these can be used at home to both learn the spellings and explore the meanings. SENECA is an online platform that is used for science homework, the purpose of this is to re-inforce the topic that is being taught in lesson and to revisit topics that have been previously taught, whether that is from the current year or previous years of learning, it is vital students are re-exposed to previous learning to allow them to continually build upon this and learn the topics in greater depth.
SENECA: https://senecalearning.com/en-GB/
Links
https://senecalearning.com/en-GB/ (Homework)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/z2pfb9q (BBC Bitesize Year 6)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zng4d2p (BBC Bitesize Years 7,8)
https://www.britishscienceweek.org/ (British Science week)
Careers in this subject
- Health
- Engineering
- Environment
- Computing
- Technological industries
- Research and development
- Academia
- Media
British Moral Values in Science
Click here to see how British Moral Values are taught in Science at Scissett Middle School.