PROGRESSION IN SCIENCE

In science, the level descriptions indicate the progression in the knowledge, understanding and skills set out in the four sections of the programme of study: scientific enquiry, life processes and living things; materials and their properties and physical processes.

To ensure pupils progress in science through key stages 1 and 2, teaching should provide opportunities for pupils to progress:

• from using everyday language to increasingly precise use of technical and scientific vocabulary, notation and symbols
• from personal scientific knowledge in a few areas to understanding in a wider range of areas and of links between these areas
• from describing events and phenomena to explaining events and phenomena
• from explaining phenomena in terms of their own ideas to explaining phenomena in terms of accepted ideas or models
• from participating in practical scientific activities to building increasingly abstract models of real situations
• from unstructured exploration to more systematic investigation of a question
• from using simple drawings, diagrams and charts to represent and communicate scientific information to using more conventional diagrams and graphs.

At key stage 3, teaching should provide opportunities for pupils to move:

• from understanding scientific knowledge in a few areas, to understanding in a wide range of areas, including links between areas
• from describing and explaining simple phenomena using their own observations and ideas, to explaining more complex phenomena using scientific concepts, ideas or models
• from seeing science as a school activity, to understanding the nature and impact of scientific and technological activity beyond the classroom
• from enquiries involving simple scientific ideas to those involving more complex ideas in which strategies need to be planned and data evaluated for its strengths and limitations
• from accepting models and theories uncritically to recognising how new evidence may require modifications to be made
• from using simple scientific language, drawings, diagrams and charts when representing scientific information, to using and extended technical vocabulary, standard notations and symbols, graphs and calculations when presenting quantitative scientific information.

Scientific enquiry
This attainment target reflects pupils' progress in:

• understanding the connections between empirical questions, evidence and scientific explanations
• planning investigative work using a range of approaches
• obtaining and recording valid and reliable evidence
• interpreting evidence, drawing conclusions and evaluating their own work
• presenting and communicating findings using a range of appropriate scientific terminology.

Life processes and living things
This attainment target reflects pupils' progress in describing and explaining:

• life processes in animals and plants
• similarities and differences in living things
• causes and variations in animals and plants
• ways in which animals and plants are suited to the environment in which they live
• ways in which animals and plants depend on each other
• how relationships between living things affect populations of organisms.

Materials and their properties
This attainment target reflects pupils' progress in describing and explaining:

• a range of materials and their properties
• the nature of different materials
• how simple mixtures can be separated
• ways in which materials can be changed and patterns in these changes
• how the properties of materials relate to the nature and organisation of the particles they contain.

Physical processes
This attainment target reflects pupils' progress in:

• describing and explaining physical phenomena related to electricity, force and motion, light and sound and energy resources and energy transfer
• relating understanding of physical phenomena to observations of the behaviour of bodies in the solar system
• using abstract ideas about physical phenomena in explanations
• recognising and using quantitative relationships between physical quantities.