Science Curriculum  

Principles and Purpose of our Science Curriculum

The impact of Science is paramount to the future of our society. At TRS we aim to do our part to ensure students leave with a wide range of powerful knowledge that allows them to become scientifically literate citizens. By embedding this knowledge, we hope that this will also allow them to perform well in terminal exams and purse their ambitions at the next stage in their education.

To enable students to be scientifically literate we deliver a broad and balanced knowledge-based curriculum in Biology, Chemistry and Physics, throughout all key stages. We teach them scientific ideas and an appreciation of how experimentation and observation develop this knowledge. As well as developing their ability to think rationally and analytically when applying this knowledge in new contexts.

The following principles have informed the planning of our science curriculum:

• Entitlement: Our Science curriculum covers the National Curriculum. We have added to the content covered by the National Curriculum, but we have not removed any content specified in the National Curriculum.    
• Coherence: We sequence our units to introduce knowledge and new ideas in a way that begins with the simplest and builds to the more complex, including a range of vertical concepts developed over time in a variety of contexts.
• Mastery: Reviewing prior knowledge is threaded throughout all the units we teach, with concepts and skills revisited, built upon, and developed in new contexts.
• Adaptability: Whilst all students study the same ambitious curriculum in Science, lessons are adapted to ensure learning is maximised for all students in that class. For example the extent to which tasks are scaffolded or re teaching an aspect of knowledge that students have no fully mastered, identified through formative feedback.
• Representation: A diverse range of names, images and scientists are used in resources throughout the curriculum so that students from all backgrounds recognise the relevance of science.
• Education with character: The science curriculum raises several ethical, culturally significant, or sensitive questions which students will want to explore in ways that go beyond the curriculum. We encourage teachers to respond sensitively to these and use their professional judgement to help students to reflect and have informed opinions on these.

For more information regarding the curriculum content, ‘what we teach, why it is taught and when’ please view our curriculum maps below.

All students will have been taught all the topics listed in the curriculum map by the end of the academic year, however different classes will follow a different topic order, and so will be taught each topic at the different times of the year.

To access additional learning resources to support students learning in Science please refer to Knowledge Organiser (KS3), The Regis SP (KS4) and our primary learning platforms Oak Academy and Seneca.