This publication takes the form of a discussion paper published by the Department for Education and Science. It presents the views of the Science Committee of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate. These views are organised into the following areas: science and the curriculum; continuity and progress; development of...

Following a major overhaul of the entire National Curriculum at Key Stage Three, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority produced a version for science with a structure consistent with other subjects. There were no changes to the other Key Stages, so the Attainment Targets (AT) and Programme of Study (PoS) for...

This was the first National Curriculum for Science in England and Wales. One intention of the National Curriculum was that all students aged 5 to 16 learn science – that there should be ‘Science for All’ – and that this should include both the ‘methods of science’ and the acquisition of ‘knowledge and understanding...

This revision of the National Curriculum was an attempt to simplify the 1989 version, and to make assessment more manageable.

*The 17 Attainment Targets (AT) were reduced to four – with these divided into ‘strands’.

*Fewer Statements of Attainment: the number was approximately halved by broadening...

This revision of the National Curriculum builds on the 1991 version and follows Sir Ron Dearing’s 1993 review of the whole National Curriculum.

*It retains the four Attainment Targets (AT), each with an associated Programme of Study (PoS), although AT1 becomes ‘Experimental and investigative science’, and...

The National Curriculum for science, published in 1999. Compared with the 1995 version of the National Curriculum, the main changes are:
*There is a statement about the ‘Importance of Science’.
*The ‘Experimental and investigative science’ sections are renamed ‘Scientific enquiry’, with an emphasis on a...

This version of the National Curriculum was written to include only changes to the Key Stage Four Programme of Study (PoS) which would be first assessed in 2006. The Attainment Targets (AT) and PoS for Key Stages One, Two and Three did not change at this time. At Key Stage Four, the following overall changes were...

A learning activity guide, from Barefoot Computing, for teachers in primary schools. It provides structure for an introductory programming session using Scratch. The activity involves tinkering within the Scratch environment - initially using existing Scratch projects then moving on to the creation of new projects...

The Teaching Primary Science book Seeds and seedlings contains many suggestions for class organisation and for activities relating to this topic. It acknowledges and makes suggestions for addressing the problem of what to do between sowing seeds and producing seedlings...

Lesson 8 in a series of lessons using Rapid Router, the game-like environment for learning programming. This session takes loops and repetition further, and includes reusing statements and nested loops.

The resource includes wall displays, worksheets, model answers and assessment sheets.

This lesson, in the Blockly Rapid Router series, challenges children to create their own maps which are then offered to classmates to solve. Creating the maps requires logical...

This lesson utilises challenges created by children during lesson 9 of the Blockly 'Rapid Router' course. While attempting to follow a programming challenge written by someone else, debugging skills and logical thinking are encouraged. Children are also required to use loops and other constructs independently....

In the third lesson of the course, children use direct 'remote control' of the Rapid router van to gain experience before starting to program their own sequences of commands. They also start to debug simple sequences.

The resource contains assessment records, wall displays, and activity solutions.