Being Scientists at S.M.I.T.H
We have many enthusiastic scientists at St Michaels, and we want to take every opportunity to help our children understand how important science is for everyone and to make links to the science behind everyday objects and activities.
We use the Developing Experts scheme of work as the backbone of our science teaching. We also add other investigations and experiments so we can suit our teaching to our learners’ needs and next steps. We are very lucky to have ‘Barry’s Back Garden’ our wild garden that enables us to investigate living things and their habitats without leaving the school site.
Our Science Policy Document can be found here:
Primary_National_Curriculum_-_Science
What is taught when? The St Michael’s 2024-25 science overview
science-subject-overview 25-26
British Science Week is always a highlight for our whole school community. This year we had an incredible week, exploring the theme of ‘Change – and adapt’, with children travelling around classes in their phases to test different phenomena. Our EYFS children had fun in deep-sea yoga and looking for camouflage caterpillars in the Wild Garden; Key Stage One explored irreversible change making sweetie art; Key Stage Two children tested the surface tension on water, and learned how jet propulsion powers rockets.
Sweetie Art Paperchain caterpillars Rocket Power
We also had a great time participating in the Great Science Share, exploring the question, ‘Do people with longer arms throw further?’
We’ve had lots of fun this year in Family Learning sessions. We began by using chromatography paper to discover the culprit who had written a ransom note for our school goldfish, Vinegar! We have also used the characters and stories of Roald Dahl for inspiration into a whizz-popping session that saw using playing cards and coins to test surface friction, making sweetie-art, creating magnetic cars and lava lamps before using the theory of rocket power to predict how far our rocket balloons could travel!
Raising our Science Capital
Another way we raise the profile of STEM subjects is by engaging with STEM Ambassadors. We are especially delighted as many of the visiting ambassadors are our parents. Evidence shows that engaging with STEM Ambassadors can help young people to achieve their full potential in STEM subjects as well as inspiring them to explore the STEM careers both in the North West and globally. It also helps teachers make links between the curriculum and the most up-to-date real world happenings, and means we have access to some wonderful resources. Other parents have made videos showing us what their job entails, to help all our children see that science is relevant to them and their world, and to consider the huge range of STEM careers they might pursue in their futures.
This year, we have been delighted to welcome teams from CSL Sequirus who showed us where a career in chemistry could take us, Liverpool University Biosciences department who shared their groundbreaking research on Biomes, Merseytravel, who showed us how engineering can become a ‘passport around the world’, Liverpool University Palaeontology Department who talked to us about all things dinosaur and our very own Shelly, who talked to us about working with elephants in Spain! https://x.com/st_michaels_ham/status/1890414321366106443 https://x.com/st_michaels_ham/status/1900587000580718768 https://x.com/st_michaels_ham/status/1900612387721429328
https://x.com/st_michaels_ham/status/1900626006219587698