KS3 Science Curriculum

The science curriculum is structured into biology, chemistry and physics units, with working scientifically skills taught in context throughout. This is made explicit to the pupils within lessons. The units in the science curriculum are grouped by key stage and organised within year groups. Pupils at Impact attend at different stages within their academic journey. Our units are pitched so that children with different starting points can access them.

Pupils need to have a large amount of subject knowledge stored in their long-term memory in order to become competent at any subject, and this is especially true of science, where application is often an application of knowledge. For this reason, lessons are designed to teach science in a clear and deliberate fashion, emphasising secure content knowledge before moving onto tasks. In this approach, the teacher is the subject expert and the emphasis is on instruction and explanation, followed by deliberate practice supported by modelling, guided practice and scaffolding. Models and analogies are also used where appropriate to allow pupils to visualise or contextualise abstract ideas.