Overview

At the British International School Ho Chi Minh City (BIS), with our science teaching and learning we aspire to nurture scientifically knowledgeable, caring and accountable children who think critically as well as make informed decisions about themselves, the environment and their society at large. Science is in all aspects of our daily lives, and as such our science teaching and the children’s learning should reflect this. We achieve this by creating a tailor made Science Curriculum to suit the ever changing scientific needs of our children, as well as preparing them to be the scientists of the future.

Our scientific understanding starts in our Early Years and is built upon year on year, developing children’s scientific knowledge, investigative skills, conceptual understanding and sense of enquiry:

EYFS

Children will learn scientific concepts through play and discovery, and will start to predict outcomes based on observations. It may look like unstructured play to the casual observer, however, to your children they are learning about how things feel, how they react to change, the limits of an object and much more. Playing and investigating is Science. 

Years 1 and 2

Children gain a greater understanding of their environment around them and continue to develop their observation and prediction skills. They are starting to learn some basic scientific techniques used to understand concepts. The children will also start using more complex scientific equipment as well as the associated vocabulary.  

Years 3 and 4

Children gain a greater understanding of the wider applications of science. They look into how it has shaped the world we live in. A focus is placed on the children understanding where they and Science fit together. Understanding of scientific concepts also the children to investigate their effects on the world they live in, but also some ways in which Science affects them.

years 5 and 6

Children’s scientific understanding and knowledge feeds into how they perceive the world and how they make judgements on new observations. The children are increasingly aware of the purpose of Science and the pursuit of evidence and truth. They continue to build a bank of ideas, concepts and knowledge that they use and apply to new concepts as they come into contact with them. MP3 also prepares the children for the transition into the Secondary School Science curriculum. 

Aims and Objectives

Our Curriculum aims are to:

• • ensure that our children access practical and age appropriate learning experiences

  • grow inquiring minds filled with curiosity about the world around us

  • gain knowledge, understanding and skills to solve problems and make informed decisions

  • develop scientific inquiry so they may carry out scientific investigations, look at the evidence and draw conclusions

  • express scientific ideas, arguments and concept with increasing accuracy

  • think critically and creatively to solve problems based on prior knowledge

  • understand the benefits and limitations of science and its applications 

  • establish attitudes of honesty and respect for both themselves and others as well as our shared environment 

Curriculum

• Yr 1 - ‘Plants’ ‘Animals, Including Humans’ ‘Materials’ ‘Seasonal Changes’ ‘Light”

• Yr 2 - ‘All Living Things and their Habitats’ ‘Plants’ ‘Animals, Including Humans’ ‘Uses of Everyday Materials’ ‘Sound’

• Yr 3 - ‘Plants’ ‘Animals, Including Humans’ ‘Rocks’ ‘Light’ ‘Forces and Magnets’

• Yr 4 - ‘All Living Things’ ‘Animals, Including Humans’ ‘States of Matter’ ‘Sound’ ‘Electricity’

• Yr 5 - ‘All Living Things’ ‘Animals, Including Humans’ ‘Properties and Changes of Materials’ ‘Forces’ ‘Earth and Space’

• Yr 6 - ‘All Living Things’ ‘Animals Including Humans’ ‘Light’ ‘Electricity’ ‘Evolution and Inheritance’

Children are also taught and assessed in an additional ‘strand’ that is developed throughout the year and incorporated in all of the other topics: ‘Working Scientifically’. This refers to the scientific investigative skills that children are taught, and will use, throughout their school lives.  The investigative skills that are taught are ‘Predicting’, ‘Planning’, ‘Measuring and Recording Observations’, ‘Drawing Conclusions’ and ‘Presenting Ideas’. 

How is progress measured?

In Science, your children are constantly assessing as they encounter and begin to understand new concepts. The teachers assess your children continuously as well. The teacher monitors and records observations on your children's progress continuously. They do this by question, observing and monitoring. As well as this, the teacher will be using short age appropriate tests to measure subject knowledge retention, as well as asking them to carry out investigations. These tests are given at the end of each topic.

To make progress quantifiable and measurable, we use a four-point scale as follows;

• Support

• Developing

• Meeting

• Exceeding

These relate directly to pupil progress measured against our Age Related Expectations for each year group (AREs).

Children’s knowledge, understanding and application of Science is measured against these four points. An ‘average’ child would usually be working within ‘Meeting’ as they are demonstrating knowledge that is expected for a child their age. Teachers may identify children as working within ‘Support’ or ‘Developing’ if they are working towards the expectations for their age. The teacher will identify this early on, and steps will be put into place to support and help your children achieve the best they can. Children identified as ‘Exceeding’ will have met all the age related expectation with an area, but the teacher will be continuing to challenge them by moving them onto more complex subject matter or concepts.  

Progress and attainment - Age related expectations (ARE)

The following document lists all of our English Age Related Expectations in one easy to follow document. On this document you are able to clearly see the progression from Year 1 up to Year 6.

HOMEWORK AND HELPING YOUR CHILD AT HOME

• • The most useful thing that a parent can do to improve their child’s scientific understanding is to simply engage with them in conversations about the word around them and encourage them to ask questions. 

  • Do not be scared of them asking questions that you do not know the answer to - instead support your child in finding out the answer by researching or investigating it themselves.

  • Find out what your child is learning about in science and borrow books from the library about that subject to read with them.

  • Look up new topics on the internet, use a search engine to search for topics along with the key words “for children” or “for kids”; e.g. ‘electricity for kids’ 

  • Give your child opportunities to play with different materials: pouring and measuring liquids, handling metals and magnets, playing with toys on different surfaces etc.