WORKING FOR OUR CHILDREN

Science @ Spire

Rationale

Science stimulates and excites pupils’ curiosity about phenomena and events in the world around them; it also satisfies their curiosity with knowledge.  Because Science directly links practical experience with ideas and concepts, it can engage learners at many levels with first-hand experiences.  Through our Science teaching and learning, pupils develop their respect for the world around them (both the natural and man-made aspects of our environment) and learn how to appreciate our varied planet.

Science is taught at Spire Junior School following the programme of study within the 2014 National Curriculum.

 

Intentions

  • To provide our children with skills-based and knowledge-rich experiences linked to Science, Engineering, Technology and Maths (STEM subjects)
  • To develop a love of Science learning within our pupils, with an appreciation of how much science impacts on everyday life.
  • To engage pupils as learners at many levels through linking ideas with practical experience;
  • To help pupils to learn to question and discuss scientific issues that may affect their own lives;
  • To help pupils develop their ‘working scientifically’ skills in order for them to ask, action and evaluate their own enquiries;
  • To promote a healthy lifestyle in our pupils;
  • To broaden the children’s understanding of science through visits, use of the outdoors and visitors to school from STEM backgrounds

Science is taught at Spire Junior School following the programme of study within the 2014 National Curriculum.

If you would like to find out more, click here for our Science Policy.

To view our Science Curriculum Statement click here. 

Science At Home

Here are some websites you may wish to explore to develop your science knowledge at home. There are a range of online ctivities as well as ideas for experiments to complete at home!

https://www.stem.org.uk/home-learning

https://www.raeng.org.uk/education/stem-at-home

https://www.steamcafe.net/stem-at-home/

https://education.theiet.org/primary/primary-experiments-and-activity-packs/

https://kidsinventstuff.com/

 

Science Partnership


To engage our children even further with their scientific learning, we work closely alongside Parkside Secondary School's science department. We are fortunate enough to take part in visits up to their school, take part in science competitions with the cluster schools and have expert scientists come to visit us because of this. This work is mainly for Years 5 and 6, as this helps to ready our children for their transition to Secondary education.

Inter School's Science Competition at Parkside 

We are proud to announce that for the 2nd year running now Spire Junior School have won this science competition. 12 of our Y6s took on numerous scientific challenges which involved using new equipment such as a bunsen burner and a microscope. Well done team!

 RI Science Show 2023 

We were very proud to receive the Grant scheme again to have the Royal Institution in School. This year we booked a presenter to come into school and present an ‘Energy Live!’ show to all of the children.

During the morning, Year 3 and 4 children watched the show, followed by Year 5 and 6 in the afternoon. As always, the children enjoyed interacting in the different experiments requiring participation including setting fire to balloons, exploding rockets and different experiments involving forces.

After school, we had a hall full of willing parents and carers who attended the community show and were a fantastic audience!

Science Week 2023

As part of Science Week 2023, all classes participated in an experiment lesson linking to this year’s theme, Connections. Different experiments that the children participated  in including floating shapes using dry wipers, marshmallow catapults and Hoop-and-Straw planes!

 

Royal Institution Science Show 2022

Back in September we were successful in gaining the Royal Institution Science in School Grant scheme which allowed us to book a presenter to come into school for a day! The topic chosen this year was ‘Food Explosions’.

In the morning, the Lower Key Stages (Years 3 and 4) watched the show followed by Upper Key Stage (Years 5 and 6) in the afternoon- all of the children thoroughly enjoyed watching the different experiments and learning about the journey that food goes on.

As ever, the willing volunteers of Spire Junior did not let us down! We had some children trying cinnamon as it cannot be tasted using our tastebuds, only using our smell! Some of the children were disgusted by the taste! The next experiment was to see whether some children had the chemical PTC (Phenylthiocarbamide) within their DNA- if they did, then the PTC chemical paper had a nasty taste- which you could tell from their faces!

We then watched what happens when oxygen and heat is added to flour- which was one of the children’s favourite experiments as the flour went everywhere, closely followed by the famous Mentos in Coke experiment!

In the evening, we hosted a community show and it was so lovely to see so many parents and children in attendance!

We all thoroughly enjoyed the Royal Institution of Science in School day and it was able to bring science learning to life in such a fun and exciting way- who doesn’t love using a Bunsen burner to do an experiment! We would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank-you to the Royal Institution of Science for such a fantastic day!

 

 

Primary Science Challenge  

Recently, 10 of our Year 6 children attended the Primary Science Challenge at Parkside Community School. They completed numerous challenges including a bunsen burner investigation, acid and alkaline test and microscope enquiry. After the results were gathered, Spire were crowned the overall champions and bought home a trophy for the school. 

Science Week 2022         -          Growth

 

Science Week 2022 has been round the theme ‘Growth’ and it has been fantastic to see such a variety of projects going on across school and understanding that growth is all around us, how important it is for survival and what we can do to encourage growth.

Year 3 have been studying the relationship between growth and age, creating tally chart and comparing the children’s height with their age. Year 4 have carried out an experiment looking at the growth of spring onions by growing them for 2 weeks. They then plotted the data on a line graph and it was really interesting to see how even given the same conditions- same water and grown in the same place how different individuals grow differently. Linking to their current science topic, year 5 have been carrying out an exciting investigation looking at soil and growth on Mars.

Year 6 have been looking at plants and how they take in water through their roots for growth. They conducted an investigation which showed this by using white flowers and food colouring to see how the water was taken up through the xylem and the phloem transports the nutrients around the plant.

In addition to this, Year 6 also attended the ‘Primary Science Challenge’ at Parkside with a group of children where they carried out a range of activities and won! Well done Year 6 for representing our school.

 

Attendance

We've achieved...

94.01%

Our target was...

96%

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Ofsted

The school was inspected by Ofsted in May 2022. The school continues to be rated as a good school.

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