The Science Curriculum at WHA

Every subject in the curriculum offered at WHA stands on four broad principles, Knowledge, experience, breadth and values. These underpin every decision teachers make in order to teach effectively. The knowledge taught is based upon the National Curriculum, the children have meaningful experiences in their learning, the breadth of the curriculum is designed so no subject is left out and every subject has an integrity – and the knowledge experiences and skills lower down the school feed into the subjects and units in the upper school, ensuring progress and a wealth of knowledge for the children to draw upon as they meet new challenges and learning. We promote our values in every aspect of the curriculum and encourage collaborative work as well as individual scholarship.

We do believe in a cross curricular approach, in order to enable children to make sense of their learning, but understand that if we were to tie in every subject to our Project Based Learning, the integrity of each subject may be lost and the learning watered down.

If Science is not the key focus in PBL, the children are offered discrete Science Lessons that follow the Hamilton Science Scheme.

We have adopted this scheme as it follows the four principles of our curriculum in that it prescribes the knowledge to be taught, but offers cross curricular activities and investigations to engage the children and enable them to make connections.

Our PBL mapping shows how previous learning in Science builds from year on year and how it is connected to the unit being taught, giving a breadth of knowledge to draw upon. Hamilton is enquiry based learning, ensuring that children are exposed to, and become more confident in scientific enquiry skills whilst gaining the scientific knowledge they need. Collaborative learning is key to promoting our school values which are very much evident in all lessons, but implicit in Science.