Where we investigate and experiment

At Sandal Castle Primary School, we promote a science curriculum that has curiosity at its heart, is equally accessible to all, develops scientific thinking, aims to inspire children to see themselves as scientists and recognise their role as innovators in our local and global community.

Core Principles of Science

We know science is going well when...

· It challenges our thinking so we are encouraged to wonder, ask questions and test our ideas.

· Everyone works together to develop their understanding in a practical, collaborative and meaningful way.

· It enables us to develop our skills as scientists and make connections in real life contexts in order to impact on the world around us.

 

What we have been learning this term

Year 1

Year 1 have been learning about freezing and melting in their topic on materials. They froze some water over night which turned from liquid (water) to solid (ice). Then they held the ice in their warm hands to find out what would happen. The heat made the ice melt slowly which made their hands wet.

                                                 

Then they found a toy stuck inside some ice and had to think about how they could get the toy out of the ice. They learnt that the hotter the heat, the faster ice melts and decided the ice would melt faster when put in to boiling water than it would if held in our hands.

            

Year 1 have also been learning about the human bodies. They have learnt the names of body parts and about our five senses.

Year 4

Year 4 have been learning about the three states of matter: solid, liquid and gas. They have learnt about the properties of these states and classified different materials into the three states. They have also learnt about how materials can change states and applied their knowledge of this to learn about the water cycle.

    

They have also been learning about living things and how to group and classify these using classification keys.

      

Year 5

Year 5 have been learning about Earth and space. They have studied the planets in our solar system as well as looking at the Earth's orbit of the sun and the moon's orbit of the Earth. Here is additional research completed by pupils outside of school to further their understanding of the topic.

Year 6

Year 6 have been learning about electricity. They have deepened their understanding from when they last learnt about this in Year 4 and have been drawing circuits they have made using electrical symbols. They also conducted an investigation to find out what would happen to the volume of a buzzer if they added more and more batteries to a circuit, and finally they created their own board games in the style of 'operation' using circuits they had constructed.

          

          

Our Science Area

We are very grateful to Miss Crowther and Mrs Webster for helping to create our new Science area in school. We have lots of lovely books and activities to enjoy and help us grow our love of Science!