Science

Science at Livingstone Primary School, is taught through a cross-curricular topic approach. Throughout the year, children will cover 6 main topics, 3 of which have a science focus.

Each topic is introduced through a question such as Would a dinosaur make a good pet? Or What would a journey around your body look like? The questions hook the children into the topic and make them enthusiastic about what they are going to learn. All of the scientific knowledge objectives for each year group are covered in the science driven topics. Children will also learn about some famous scientists and their discoveries as part of these science topics.

At the start of a science lesson, we use targetted questions which link back to previous areas of scientific learning so the children can practise remembering key facts which they have learnt in previous years. They can then use this previous knowledge as a basis to build new skills and knowledge.

Each science topic starts off by sharing a knowledge organiser with some key vocabulary, facts and information about what we are going to learn during this topic. The children are encouraged to think about this knowledge and write one or more questions which they would like to find out the answers to during their learning. At the end of the unit, the children look back at their knowledge organiser to check whether we have answered their questions.

During history and geography topics, children still learn science by improving their skills on scientific enquiry. Scientific enquiry skills include: questioning, observing, measuring, comparing and testing, sorting and classifying and researching using books or the internet. Activities are planned into each non-science based unit to ensure that children get a chance to practise and improve these skills regularly. Some examples of working scientifically in history and geography are: comparing habitats in a geography topic based on the rainforest or building and testing catapults in a history unit about the Romans.

In Reception, children explore science through hands‑on play, curiosity and real‑world experiences. We spend time investigating our surroundings in forest school and observing weather and seasonal changes. Science is woven into everyday learning in the classroom and the children are encouraged to ask questions and to notice changes, patterns and simple cause‑and‑effect. 

Every year, Livingstone takes part in National Science Week to get the children even more excited about science. Children can take part in investigations and experiments to learn more about the world around us and help them to see that science is everywhere and that everybody can be a scientist. Over the last 3 years, we have run a science fair during science week where the children can share their learning with their parents and get to try out exciting experiments from other classrooms as well. This has been a great way to get the children and their parents excited about science at our school.

During their time at Livingstone, all children will get a chance to visit a science museum and will welcome scientific visitors to our school to support their learning.