Primary Science Quality mark – Hampton Hill Junior School

Applying for the PSQM (primary science quality mark) was a process that had a very positive impact on the science at school.  It identified a few key areas for improvement and how we might address these.

For example, some year groups’ planning had scope to include more investigations, as well as a greater variety of different types of investigation.  We have addressed this in several ways, including using a whole school science week as a CPD opportunity.  Teachers were given a pack of ten different investigations (which included a range of types, i.e. some exploration, some fair testing etc.) with CPD time the week before to work with the science subject leader to select at least five investigations and make sure they were confident to deliver them.  This really helped teachers see how they could build new investigations into other units of work. See resources

 

Assessment of science was also helped by the PSQM.  Teachers carried this out in a range of ways; there was not a coherent whole school approach.  The science subject leader looked carefully at what assessment tools were being used and how effective this was.  This led to the design of a very simple school assessment system, where the focus is on assessment for learning in science skills, and which builds in a strong element of self and peer assessment.  Some classes are trialling this now and it will be reviewed and adapted midway through the academic year.

We also looked carefully at how our outdoor learning environment can support science and adapted plans to make the best use of it.  For example in Year 5, when studying plants, we now do a ‘garden walk’ where the children take time just to look, draw and talk to each other about what they notice.  They sit and write down the questions that they have in their minds, based on their observations, and they choose one of their questions to investigate.  Their brief is that they do a survey, study of a particular plant or a fair test and that present it all as a report in which they include a number of measurements they have made over a period of three weeks.  It is very open ended and the learning opportunities are huge; they make a lot of mistakes along the way; recognising these, and reviewing and adapting their study as a result, means they make excellent progress with scientific skills.