Purpose of Study
Science at St Finbar’s school encourages children to explore, question, and make sense of the world around them. We want children to develop a natural curiosity and confidence to ask questions, test ideas, and seek evidence to explain how things work.
Through the HEP Science Curriculum, children follow a carefully sequenced, knowledge-rich programme that builds understanding and enquiry skills from the Early Years through to Year 6. The curriculum ensures coverage of biology, chemistry, and physics in a way that is practical, engaging, and relevant to everyday life.
Our science teaching is rooted in the principles of investigation. children learn to:
This approach aligns with the National Curriculum for Science, which aims to equip children with the knowledge and skills to understand the natural world and to think scientifically.
Aims
Our science curriculum, delivered through the HEP Science scheme, aims for all children to:
Documents
Science – Inclusion in Science
Science – Curriculum Statement
Our topic this half term is all about sound. We looked at how sound is created through vibrations. To investigate this we created harmonicas with elastics bands. When we blew into the harmonicas we caused the elastic band to vibrate creating sound.
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In todays lesson we explored what happens when friction becomes too high. Year 5 did this practically through the jelly experiment! Firstly, we timed how long it took to remove 6 jelly cubes with our pencils. Then we added oil and salt to more cubes, to see how this affected the levels of friction. We had lots of fun carrying this out and learning about friction.
The children were excited to see ice in our outdoor area. We put water in a tray and some items over night to see if it would freeze. It did! The children loved exploring the ice.
Over the last two science lessons we have been learning about the digestive system and we started with teeth. The teeth start the process by chewing and swallowing our food and drink. We then set up an investigation to look at how different liquids can cause problems for our teeth and which ones are better for the enamel. We observed over the week how the shells of the egg changed.
Today Year 5 were set the task of becoming engineers and creating their own gliders. First, we spent sometime designing and perfecting our gliders on paper. Then we brought them to life using card, straws, masking table and blu tac. The children were then able to test out their glider and see how far it travelled! All of year 5 were happy and excited to see their glider fly.
We have had a fantastic science lesson and learnt about parts of our body. We drew around our body and began labelling.
You may have heard about our exciting lesson which included making ice-cream in class! We were exploring how the change in state takes place from liquid to solid using freezing. We took milk, vanilla essence and sugar and out them in a small freezer bag. Then we put the bag inside a bugger bag filled with ice and salt. Then shook it for 10 minutes to make the state change and then we tasted our ice cream!
Our topic in Autumn 1 was states of matter and in this lesson we were looking at the rate of ice melting. We discussed how ice is a solid and it changes state to liquid when it melts. Then we set up an investigation looking into whether adding water with salt, baking soda and sugar could slow down or speed up the rate of melting. Our conclusion was that salt was the one that slowed down the rate of melting the most.
In Science we carried out an investigation to look at irreversible changes. Year 5 mixed bicarbonate of soda with vinegar and placed a glove over the top. They watched the hand come alive, as the bicarbonate of soda and vinegar mixed, creating carbon dioxide. We were all very excited with the results!
Today, we had a lovely time in our school garden, looking at the vibrant features of God’s creation and His beautiful creatures which he made. We looked at the fish and their stripes, we looked at the delicate features on leaves and we talked about how each plant is so unique.
In Science, we have been looking at properties and changes of materials. We carried out an investigation to see how water can change state. Year 5 discovered that water is an example of a reversible change, because it can be reversed by adding or removing heat.
During this lesson, we invested the components and their roles within the blood. Each group was faced with four patients – someone who was fighting an infection; someone who has a cut; someone who has been exercising and someone who is healthy.
Looking at the platelets, white blood cell, red bloods and plasma each group managed to work out who was who.
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Ask us all about our learning. Each part represented the heart, blood vessels, values and cardiac muscles but which is which?
Today, we got to care for our school chicks. We all had a turn of holding the chicks.
Sunflower class have been learning about growing and changes. We have talked about how God shows his love all around us, giving us new life.
Finding our pulse was tricky, but we loved spotting what happened to your pulse when we rested and exercised. #StFinbarsScientists
Year 5 have been learning all about hydrogen as the energy of the future. All learners were fully engaged and able to talk about how this will help reduce pollution on our planet @MadScienceGroup @StFinbarsSch
