Science
At Eastbrook Primary school every day, every child has access to the highest quality teaching, learning and independent reading resources.
Our staff are highly skilled, our reading materials are of a high quality and we provide access to reading materials at home that engage as well as excite children of all ages and abilities and helps to foster a love of reading amongst all of our children.
Our curriculum offer at Eastbrook centres around high quality reading texts and they act as a focal point and learning catalyst for our learning in other subject areas.
EYFS & KS1
To truly develop a love of reading, we believe the first step towards this is to ensure it is an achievable and enjoyable activity to learn to read in the first instance.
In our Early Years and Key Stage 1 classrooms, we are deploying a daily phonics scheme supported by Read, Write Inc. (RWI) Each day, the children – in small groups of no more than 7 – recap the phonetic sounds they have previously been taught before moving on to focus on their ‘sound of the day’. This involves learning the sound by sight and using it within commonly used words to build up familiarity of sound recognition and therefore, independent reading.
Our use of the RWI scheme is underpinned by frequent assessment to ensure progress is being made and to support all of our children appropriately and accordingly.
The daily literacy lesson is derived from a text featured in either the Power of Reading, Poetry or Pictures which feature teaching sessions as supported by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE).
Information relating to the Read, Write Inc. scheme of learning can be found by clicking the link below.
For more information about where w draw our inspiration from for most of our daily literacy sessions, please see the CLPE website
KS2
To further develop the love for reading we start to foster in our EYFS and KS1 areas, we begin to broaden the horizons of children’s reading even further when they enter Year 3. With a solid understanding and implementation of their phonics learning, more time is given to looking at a wider range of text types, genres and uses of text in Key Stage 2.
Daily guided reading, supported by the class teacher, exposes the children to a variety of different texts. Sometimes a short, fictional novel is the focus for multiple weeks but others could feature a collection of poetry or magazine style articles, with all texts sharing elements of a theme or idea to emphasise the importance of reading across a range of text types. Daily activities involving these texts serve to develop and increase the reading skills of all children in Key Stage 2.
To maintain a high level of quality and consistency across the school, Key Stage 2 children also have the benefit of focusing their daily literacy hour around high quality texts as suggested by the CLPE through their Power of Reading and Poetry titles.
Further information about where we take inspiration from for our reading curriculum can be found at the link below.
Home Reading
Every child at Eastbrook is issued with our very own bespoke reading records. The content and guidance contained within is appropriate to the key stage the child is in. Our reading records also help our children to identify their school house which serves to support the character education we pride ourselves on at Eastbrook Primary school.
As part of our commitment to giving children access to the highest quality reading materials at home as well as at school, we provide opportunities for children to access online reading services alongside the taking home of physical books from school.
Reception – Year 2 children have access to phonics books provided by RWI online to support and embed their sound of the day at home. They also have access to a wider range of texts courtesy of Bug Club.
Some Year 2 students as well as the entirety of Key Stage 2 children have access to Oxford Reading Buddy, an online reading service provided by Oxford University Press.
Our Leader of Learning for Reading is Mr. C. Peake
At Eastbrook School we believe that our science curriculum provides our children with opportunities to learn about, ask questions and evaluate aspects of the world around them and to develop knowledge, curiosity and enquiry skills. In addition, we understand the importance of raising aspirations to promote a life-long love for science, to inspire a future generation of scientists (Wellcome Trust, 2017).
The science curriculum at Eastbrook Primary School has been developed so that as our children progress through the key stages, their knowledge, understanding and skill set is continually built upon and embedded. It offers and wide and rich variety of different experiences, including the use of the school grounds, practical and hands-on sessions and focused outreach visits. Our science teaching and learning is planned within the International Primary Curriculum, providing opportunities for cross curricular links.
Science is relevant to most everyday situations and to our children’s character development and through our teaching of science we enable our children enjoy learning about different science concepts and using this to support their understanding of their world now and how they may mould the future.
Our curriculum ensures that all children:
Have opportunities to develop their scientific knowledge and understanding within the key disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics
Gain hands on, practical experiences and develop a respect for the equipment that they are using, enabling them to answer scientific questions about the world around them
Develop a broad and rich scientific vocabulary which is built upon as they progress through the school
Build a love for science which they share with their peers, supporting adults and family
End Point
Science education at Eastbrook School provides the foundation of understanding the world through biology, chemistry and physics which is a fundamental part of our everyday lives. It helps to explain so much of the world around us and enables advances in many areas including health, communication, the environment and leisure. All pupils should be taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science entwined with their development of scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding. Scientific enquiries skills support their understanding and help them to answer every day scientific questions about the world around them. They should be encouraged to understand how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave, and analyse causes. Our science curriculum spiral design clearly supports the building of knowledge, skills and virtue in increasing complexity. The teaching is well sequenced to remind and revisit main concepts through different topics in the spiral curriculum.
Way Points
As the future for our children change, the role of science and the demand for science-based careers in their future becomes ever more important (HM Government, 2017). It is necessary that we inspire and innovate the teaching of science to ensure that our children remain curious, interested and invested about science and their future.
By the end of Early Years Foundation Stage
Our EYFS science education is designed to introduce our young children to a range of ideas and practices related to the natural world around them. Inquiry based play is key to the science in our EYFS curriculum and through this, our children will leave early years as question askers, good thinkers and naturally curious.
By the end of Key Stage One
The main focus of science teaching in Key Stage One is to ensure that children have opportunities to be curious. Children will have hands on practical experiences, observing the phenomena and looking closely at the natural and human-constructed world around them. The children’s questioning skills are developed to ensure they have the skills needed to ask questions and be able to answer them using their working scientifically skill set, including observing over time, pattern seeking, grouping and classifying, carrying out simple tests and finding out things using secondary sources of information. The main areas of science that children will be exposed to are plants, animals including humans, materials, living things and habitats, and seasons. Children use science specific vocabulary in line with their reading age at Key Stage One (National Curriculum, 2013).
By the end of Lower Key Stage Two
At the next stage of science teaching, children are encouraged to broaden their view of the world around them. Through discussion, testing and developing ideas, children are beginning to understand functions, link different concepts and build relationships between pieces of knowledge. Utilising their skill set developed in Key Stage One, children are now encouraged to ask their own questions and determine the best way of answering them. Children are supported in drawing conclusions from their results, both verbally and written, and are able to present their findings with using a wider science vocabulary with confidence. Children will be able to explore different concepts within animals including humans, rocks, electricity, light, sound, plants, living things and habitats and states of matter (National Curriculum, 2013).
By the end of Upper Key Stage Two
In the final stage of their primary science career, children now discover and ask questions about more abstract science concepts. They use their working scientifically skill set to answer their questions, allowing them to analyse functions, concepts and relationships more systematically. They use their knowledge to understand the world around them at a more complex level and are beginning to understand that this knowledge can be used to change and impact the future (National Curriculum, 2013).
