Science: Key Stage 1
Working Scientifically
KS1
- Asking simple questions and recognising that they can be answered in different ways
- Observing closely, using simple equipment
- Performing simple tests
- Identifying and classifying
- Using their observations and ideas to suggest answers to questions
- Gathering and recording data to help in answering questions
Seasonal Changes
KS1
- Observe changes across the four seasons
- Observe and describe weather associated with the seasons and how day length varies.
Plants
KS1
- Identify and name a variety of common wild and garden plants, including deciduous and evergreen trees
- Identify and describe the basic structure of a variety of common flowering plants, including trees
- Observe and describe how seeds and bulbs grow into mature plants
- Find out and describe how plants need water, light and a suitable temperature to grow and stay healthy
Animals, Including Humans
KS1
- Identify and name a variety of common animals including fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals
- Identify and name a variety of common animals that are carnivores, herbivores and omnivores
- Describe and compare the structure of a variety of common animals (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, including pets)
- Notice that animals, including humans, have offspring which grow into adults
- Find out about and describe the basic needs of animals, including humans, for survival (water, food and air)
- Describe the importance for humans of exercise, eating the right amounts of different types of food, and hygiene
Living Things & Their Habitats
KS1
- Explore and compare the differences between things that are living, dead, and things that have never been alive
- Identify that most living things live in habitats to which they are suited and describe how different habitats provide for the basic needs of different kinds of animals and plants, and how they depend on each other
- Identify and name a variety of plants and animals in their habitats, including micro-habitats
- Describe how animals obtain their food from plants and other animals, using the idea of a simple food chain, and identify and name different sources of food.
Science: Key Stage 2
Working Scientifically
KS2
- Asking relevant questions and using different types of scientific enquiries to answer them
- Setting up simple practical enquiries, comparative and fair tests
- Making systematic and careful observations and, where appropriate, taking accurate measurements using standard units, using a range of equipment, including thermometers and data loggers
- Gathering, recording, classifying and presenting data in a variety of ways to help in answering questions
- Recording findings using simple scientific language, drawings, labelled diagrams, keys, bar charts, and tables
- Reporting on findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations, displays or presentations of results and conclusions
- Using results to draw simple conclusions, make predictions for new values, suggest improvements and raise further questions
- Identifying differences, similarities or changes related to simple scientific ideas and processes
- Using straightforward scientific evidence to answer questions or to support their findings.
Plants
KS2
- 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
KS2
- 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.
- 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.
States of Matter
KS2
- Compare and group materials together, according to whether they are solids, liquids or gases
- Observe that some materials change state when they are heated or cooled, and
- Measure or research the temperature at which this happens in degrees Celsius (°C)
- Identify the part played by evaporation and condensation in the water cycle and associate the rate of evaporation with temperature.
- Know that some materials will dissolve in liquid to form a solution, and describe how to recover a substance from a solution
- Use knowledge of solids, liquids and gases to decide how mixtures might be separated, including through filtering, sieving and evaporating
- Give reasons, based on evidence from comparative and fair tests, for the particular uses of everyday materials, including metals, wood and plastic
- Demonstrate that dissolving, mixing and changes of state are reversible changes
- Explain that some changes result in the formation of new materials, and that this kind of change is not usually reversible, including changes associated with burning and the action of acid on bicarbonate of soda.
Living Things & Their Habitats
KS2
- 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.
- Describe the differences in the life cycles of a mammal, an amphibian, an insect and a bird
- Describe the life process of reproduction in some plants and animals.
- Describe how living things are classified into broad groups according to common
- Observable characteristics and based on similarities and differences, including micro-organisms, plants and animals
- Give reasons for classifying plants and animals based on specific characteristics
Light
KS2
- 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
- Use the idea that light travels in straight lines to explain why shadows have the same shape as the objects that cast them
Evolution & Inheritance
KS2
- Recognise that living things have changed over time and that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago
- Recognise that living things produce offspring of the same kind, but normally offspring vary and are not identical to their parents
- Identify how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment in different ways and that adaptation may lead to evolution.
Rocks
KS2
- 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.
Forces
KS2
- Explain that unsupported objects fall towards the Earth because of the force of gravity acting between the Earth and the falling object
- Identify the effects of air resistance, water resistance and friction, that act between moving surfaces
- Recognise that some mechanisms, including levers, pulleys and gears, allow a smaller force to have a greater effect