Understanding Primary School Science

This article is written to help sort out what is required from children studying Key Stage 2 Science – it is a subject that can be a lot of fun to learn, but horrible if you get confused. I’m using the Key Stage 2 National Curriculum as the starting point of my explanation. The object of the curriculum is to encourage children to become confident young scientists.

The first step is getting what science is about – and that’s a simpler question to answer than it seems. Science starts by asking questions about what you notice, and then goes on to ponder how and why that happens. And at this level, you’ve got to start figuring out how to find out for yourself. Wikipedia is the lazy answer and cannot help with everything you’re burning to find out. I’m talking about personally experimenting and making discoveries for yourself. So like scientists, children who do well at primary school science need to have investigative skills like planning experiments and presenting the results.

The next step is looking at the three streams of knowledge that must be learnt. First up is ‘Life’, where it’s important to be able to talk about the insides and outsides of humans and green plants, and also to investigate how the environment helps and hinders the survival of living things.

The second stream is about the materials that we see and use everyday like metals, rocks, and water. There are lots of surprising facts for children in this area. For instance, sand moves like a liquid but a microscope can help you see its true nature. In primary school science, children have to learn the ways that you can change and alter materials or separate mixtures in different ways.

The last area is about the mysterious processes that go on all around us. Though electricity is used to power all of their gadgets, it is often the case that children leave primary school with unshakeable misconceptions about how it works. The other processes to learn are light, sound, forces, movement, and even the Earth’s place in the universe. Science is at its most exciting when you’re understanding invisible, unobservable processes.

Finally, science should be taught with a respect for the health and safety risks of experiments and investigations, and use of the correct scientific vocabulary is encouraged to help communication in science lessons.

Primary science consists of encouraging the development of investigative skills and a respect for the subject, as well as building up knowledge of living things, materials and physical processes. If you have children in Key Stage 1, they will be following a similar curriculum with a stronger emphasis on building investigative skills rather than remembering detailed facts.