Intent: Developing a love of science and natural curiosity to access and explore the world.
At Hillside, our Science Curriculum is underpinned by cognitive science, building on children’s prior knowledge, and is enriched with retrieval practice to support long-term retention. Supported by the CUSP curriculum, science learning at Hillside is sequenced 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.
Each area of study draws upon prior learning, for example, in the EYFS, pupils may learn about The Natural World through daily activities and exploring their locality and immediate environment. This is revisited and positioned so that new and potentially abstract content in Year 1, such as Animals, including humans, is related to what children already know. This makes it easier to cognitively process. This helps to accelerate new learning as children integrate prior understanding.
Our ambitious interpretation of the National Curriculum places knowledge, vocabulary, working and thinking scientifically at the heart of our principles, structure and practice. CUSP and in turn the Hillside Science Curriculum precisely follow the units outlined in the National Curriculum with additional focus on vocabulary development and experience in order to meet the specific needs of our school demographic.
