Lower Key Stage 2 Science

 

The principal focus of science teaching in lower key stage 2 is to enable pupils to broaden their scientific view of the world around them.

 

They should do this through exploring, talking about, testing and developing ideas about everyday phenomena and the relationships between living things and familiar environments, and by beginning to develop their ideas about functions, relationships and interactions.

 

They should ask their own questions about what they observe and make some decisions about which types of scientific enquiry are likely to be the best ways of answering them, including observing changes over time, noticing patterns, grouping and classifying things, carrying out simple comparative and fair tests and finding things out using secondary sources of information.

 

They should draw simple conclusions and use some scientific language, first, to talk about and, later, to write about what they have found out.

 

Working scientifically

• Ask relevant questions and using different types of scientific enquiries to answer them
• Set up simple practical enquiries, comparative and fair tests
• Make systematic and careful observations and, where appropriate, taking accurate measurements using standard units, using a range of equipment, including thermometers and data loggers
• Gather, record, classify and present data in a variety of ways to help in answering questions
• Record findings using simple scientific language, drawings, labelled diagrams, keys, bar charts, and tables
• Report on findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations, displays or presentations of results and conclusions
• Use results to draw simple conclusions, make predictions for new values, suggest improvements and raise further questions
• Identify differences, similarities or changes related to simple scientific ideas and processes
• Use straightforward scientific evidence to answer questions or to support their findings.

 

Plants

• Identify and describe the functions of different parts of flowering plants: roots, stem/trunk, leaves and flowers
• Explore the requirements of plants for life and growth (air, light, water, nutrients from soil, and room to grow) and how they vary from plant to plant
• Investigate the way in which water is transported within plants
• Explore the part that flowers play in the life cycle of flowering plants, including pollination, seed formation and seed dispersal

 

Animals, including humans

• Identify that animals, including humans, need the right types and amount of nutrition, and that they cannot make their own food; they get nutrition from what they eat
• Identify that humans and some other animals have skeletons and muscles for support, protection and movement
• Describe the simple functions of the basic parts of the digestive system in humans
• Identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions
• Construct and interpret a variety of food chains, identifying producers, predators and prey

 

Living things and their habitats

• Recognise that living things can be grouped in a variety of ways
• Explore and use classification keys to help group, identify and name a variety of living things in their local and wider environment
• Recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers to living things

 

Rocks

• Compare and group together different kinds of rocks on the basis of their appearance and simple physical properties
• Describe in simple terms how fossils are formed when things that have lived are trapped within rock
• Recognise that soils are made from rocks and organic matter

 

Light

• Recognise that they need light in order to see things and that dark is the absence of light
• Notice that light is reflected from surfaces
• Recognise that light from the sun can be dangerous and that there are ways to protect their eyes
• Recognise that shadows are formed when the light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object
• find patterns in the way that the size of shadows change

 

Sound

• Identify how sounds are made, associating some of them with something vibrating
• Recognise that vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear
• Find patterns between the pitch of a sound and features of the object that produced it
• Find patterns between the volume of a sound and the strength of the vibrations that produced it
• Recognise that sounds get fainter as the distance from the sound source increases

 

Forces and magnets

• Compare how things move on different surfaces
• Notice that some forces need contact between 2 objects, but magnetic forces can act at a distance
• Observe how magnets attract or repel each other and attract some materials and not others
• Compare and group together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of whether they are attracted to a magnet, and identify some magnetic materials
• Describe magnets as having 2 poles
• Predict whether 2 magnets will attract or repel each other, depending on which poles are facing

 

Electricity

• Identify common appliances that run on electricity
• Construct a simple series electrical circuit, identifying and naming its basic parts, including cells, wires, bulbs, switches and buzzers
• Identify whether or not a lamp will light in a simple series circuit, based on whether or not the lamp is part of a complete loop with a battery
• Recognise that a switch opens and closes a circuit and associate this with whether or not a lamp lights in a simple series circuit
• Recognise some common conductors and insulators, and associate metals with being good conductors