Science

Studying Science provides children with the foundations for understanding the world around us. Science encourages us to ask questions, find answers and make close observations about how and why things work as they do. While we develop these rational explanations we also aim to develop a sense of excitement and curiosity about natural phenomena. Children enjoy finding out how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave and analyse causes.

Yearly Overview

Science at Queen Emma is very “hands on” and children are encouraged to “Work Scientifically” during each and every topic. As such they develop a variety of important skills including the ability to plan, observe and evaluate. They become accustomed to using a variety of tools and equipment and over time become adept at presenting and explaining their findings. Investigating is at the heart of Science and Queen Emma children know we value their thinking.

Please click on the link to view our Science policy on our Policies page.

Examples Of Learning

Year 2 have spent a chilly lesson exploring ice. Things that we discovered and wanted answering were;

• Ice can melt and turns slippery when handled. The warmth from our hands make the ice melt which turns the ice into water. This is a reversible change.
• Ice shrinks when it melts.
• Some of the ice was opaque and other pieces were transparent. Why is this?
• Salt speeds up the melting process if put onto ice.
• Some ice is bumpy and rough but it can also be smooth.

Reception have been exploring animals in their busy learning time and were talking about the fact that sea creatures can only breathe under water. How interesting!

Penguin and Polar Bear class in year 2 have looked at animals. They started off their learning by exploring what key things animals need in order to survive. They then crated their own mythical creature, explaining how they functioned (eg what they ate, how they breathed) Later on in their learning, they also looked at how humans can keep healthy and made a healthy food plate. This term Year 2 are exploring materials and their properties.

Year 3 have started their year off learning about rocks and soils. They learnt about how rocks are formed (using chocolate!) and did an experiment on rock permeability. Year 3 loved the fossils and rocks day planned last term too. They’ve now moved onto learning about our bones and other animal skeletons.

Year 4 have been working hard on how to classify living things by making a classification flow chart. They worked really hard in groups as some animals were really challenging to classify. For example where would you put a duck billed platypus?

Living Things and Habitats are Year 4’s science topic where they have been busy carrying out an experiment on woodlice and the conditions for their ideal habitat. The children went out and collected woodlice, then made a woodlice hotel, observing which area they preferred to stay in. Year 4 are now obviously woodlice experts!

Giraffe and Zebra class kicked off the year with a thrilling science experiment relating to their topic, Forces. They spent their lessons carrying out an investigation on air resistance; making parachutes, which they launched at school. They’ve been looking scientifically at making experiments a fair test and following up their investigation with some reflections of why their parachutes either did or didn’t work.

Year 6 have been extremely busy this term looking at electricity. After learning about the symbols of a circuit, they had a selection of materials and had to make a complete working circuit that lit a bulb. The problem was they had no wires, so had to think about which materials conducted electricity. They worked so hard testing their theories.