CUSP Science Curriculum
We use the CUSP Science curriculum to support our children’s knowledge and understanding in this area of learning.
Children are naturally curious about the world in which they live. Through the science curriculum, underpinned by our 5 principles, we aim to give Barnfield children the opportunity to ask questions, to investigate, to formulate hypotheses, to design and carry out experiments and to make observations and record results.
Children start to explore aspects of Science in the early years, when they discover more about themselves and the world in which they live.
At Barnfield we believe that a high-quality science curriculum builds the foundations for understanding the world through the scientific disciplines of chemistry, biology and physics. Science has changed our lives and is vital to the future prosperity of the world. Our pupils are taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science.
Through building knowledge and understanding, children will be able to recognise the power of rational explanation. We know that the quality and variety of language are key in developing scientific vocabulary and the ability to articulate scientific concepts. Therefore, building pupils’ scientific vocabulary is a vital part of our curriculum which is built on as children progress through school. All children are taught to use and remember Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary as part of their Science lessons. This supports children’s knowledge and understanding, not only of the topic they are studying, but of the world around them.
CUSP
As a school, we have chosen to use the CUSP curriculum for Science. This is because the CUSP curriculum aligns with our own principles and approach to learning. This curriculum states:
CUSP Science has sequenced the national curriculum into meaningful and connected ‘chunks’ of content to reduce the load on the working memory as well as creating coherent and strong long-term memories. The sequence of substantive and disciplinary knowledge enables pupils to become ‘more expert’ with each study and grow an ever broadening and coherent mental model of the subject. This guards against superficial, disconnected and fragmented scientific knowledge and weak disciplinary knowledge. High frequency, multiple meaning words (Tier 2) are taught explicitly and help make sense of subject specific words (Tier 3). Each learning module in science has a vocabulary module with teacher guidance, tasks and resources to enhance and deepen understanding.
CUSP Science deliberately pays attention and values the importance of subject content as well as the context it is taught in. Common scientific misconceptions are identified in all CUSP Science learning modules. These misconceptions are made explicit to pupils. Children draw upon substantive and disciplinary knowledge to reason and practise acquiring the conception, whilst repelling the misconceptions. Examples and non-examples are powerful ways of saying what something is and what something isn’t.
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