Our Learning Sequence

Science teaching at St Thomas Aquinas aims to give all children a strong understanding of the world around them whilst acquiring specific skills and knowledge to help them to think scientifically, to gain an understanding of scientific processes and also an understanding of the uses and implications of Science, today and for the future.

At St Thomas Aquinas, scientific enquiry skills are embedded in each topic the children study and these topics are revisited and developed throughout their time at school. This model allows children to build upon their prior knowledge and increases their enthusiasm for the topics whilst embedding this procedural knowledge into the long-term memory. We provide our children with wider opportunities in science, some of which involves having close links with our local secondary school. Teachers also ensure links are made with other subjects where possible.

Science teaching at St Thomas Aquinas follows a clear sequence of learning:

• Explore
• Enquire
• Evaluate

The ‘Explore’ stage will expose the children to the key vocabulary of the topic, allow them to ask questions, identify and classify and plan investigations. The children will obtain the knowledge required in order to move through the sequence successfully. This will be done using a wide-variety of teaching methods including outdoor learning.

The ‘Enquire’ stage will require children to make predictions and will allow them to set up an investigation in order to answer a ‘big question’, which will have been introduced to them in the ‘Explore’ stage. They will carry out careful observations throughout this stage in order to answer the ‘big question’.

The ‘Evaluate’ stage will allow children to gather and record their findings from the ‘Enquire’ stage. They will also carry out an evaluation of their investigations.

The implementation of science at St Thomas Aquinas ensures that the school gives full coverage of, ‘The National Curriculum programmes of study for Science 2014’ and, ‘Understanding of the World’ in the Early Years Foundation Stage.