Middle School Science

The science education we are offering children attempts to take into account the changes occurring throughout society. As a department we are conscious of the need to produce individuals who have a broad general education, good communication skills, adaptability and a commitment to lifelong learning. With an ever-growing importance attached to scientific issues within daily life, we aim to prepare children by encouraging them to gain sufficient knowledge and understanding to follow science and scientific debates with interest, and to engage with the issues science and technology poses – both for them individually, and for our society as a whole.

We try to go beyond the curriculum prevalent in many schools (the content-led National Curriculum) to promote the kind of ‘understanding’ that enables children to deal effectively and confidently with scientific information in everyday contexts – for example, understanding media reports and the basis of personal decisions about health and diet. We want to encourage an understanding of what science can tell us about the material world, the way we think of ourselves, of the Universe we inhabit, and of our place within it.

The department resists the temptation to include too much content in order to give sufficient time to transferable skills such as discussion, research, presentation, reflection and analysis. If we can promote an understanding of the scientific approach to inquiry then the children can also appreciate both the power and the limitations of different kinds of scientific knowledge claims. They will also be aware of the difficulties of obtaining reliable and valid data. Whilst the science curriculum is a course designed to enhance ‘scientific literacy’, it also caters for those children who wish to become science specialists.

Assessment of work

Our topic-based science curriculum encourages the use of a wide variety of teaching methods and approaches. Accordingly, modes of assessment to accompany our curriculum have a wide focus; we also aim to develop the children’s own self-assessment skills. We use assessment for diagnostic and formative purposes; it can have a significant positive effect on achievement. Our assessment system encourages the development of skills and capabilities rather than emphasising the recall of specific, detailed and unrelated ‘facts’. Students are not therefore subjected to a battery of summative tests. The assessments they undertake will help us to judge if we are fulfilling our criteria of producing thinking scientists who are equipped to search out meaning and impose structure; to deal systematically, yet flexibly, with novel problems and situations; to adopt a critical attitude to information and argument; and to communicate effectively.

Homework

Homework is not always given but, when it is, it is usually used to encourage students to either explore further the ideas that have been established in class or to engage in independent research for projects, presentations or simply matters of individual interest. Year 7 students can expect up to 30 minutes homework each week, building up to one hour by the end of Year 9.

Equipment required

At the beginning of Year 7, students are issued with three text books that will cover the majority of the topics studied in middle school. Exercise books and folders for worksheets are issued as required and it is expected that students will arrive to lessons with the standard equipment for writing about, and diagrammatically illustrating, their work.

Further study

GCSE: 21st Century Science, 21st Century Additional Science (we may offer single Sciences as well); AS/A2: Nuffield Salters Biology; Chemistry; Advancing Physics.