Science

Here at St Bart's we are proud of science in our school - we hold a national award PSQM (Primary Science Quality Mark) at GILT level. This means that science is embedded in everything we do. 

Throughout school we ensure hands on learning through the five enquiry types where scientific skills are developed and built on from Nursery all the way to Year 6. We aim to take learning outdoors as much as possible.

Children learn about different science roles available in the world around them and how it fits in to their everyday lives. We love having visitors in to talk about their jobs in science and encourage all of the children to see themselves as mini scientists. 

In our science club the children are in charge of developing and maintaining our brand-new wildlife site. We can't wait to see what they do with it!

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Curriculum - Science - Useful Links

Explorify

PSTT (Primary Science Teaching Trust)

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This week, we worked in groups and presented the circulatory system to the class. 

We explained how it works, and then assessed each group based on our physical and linguistic oracy strand.

 

Class 13 have continued their studies of the circulatory system and created a model to demonstrate how it works. 

They used zip-lock bags to represent the lungs and coloured string to show the flow of blood around the body. Red string was used to represent oxygenated blood, while blue string represented deoxygenated blood, helping the children to visualise how blood travels through the circulatory system. 

The class worked hard to bring their learning to life and develop a deeper understanding of this important body system. Next week, they will be labelling their models and identifying the different parts and their functions.

 

Class 13 had a fantastic day on our trip to Cannon Hall Farm. One of the highlights was watching the sheep race, where the blue sheep raced to victory! 

We also visited the meerkats and had great fun pretending to be meerkats ourselves in the tunnel play area.Throughout the day, we explored the Small Mammal House, where we saw a variety of fascinating nocturnal animals. We then visited the Reptile House and discovered a range of reptiles, including snakes, lizards, turtles and tortoises. 

Above our heads, we were amazed to see a trail of leaf-cutter ants busily carrying pieces of leaves back to their colony.To finish our wonderful day, we enjoyed a delicious ice cream and spent time playing in the large adventure play area. 

It was a memorable trip, filled with fun, learning and lots of exciting animal encounters!

 

This week, we made our own versions of the circulatory system, showing where the oxygenated and deoxygenated blood travels to reach our lungs, and the rest of our body.

 

This week, as part of our circulatory system topic, we dissected a lambs heart. The children worked in groups, to dissect and find the atriums and ventricles of the heart. 

 

This week in science Class 12 have debated whether they argue with Galen or Harvey’s theory of the circulatory system.

 

This week we concluded our science unit, ‘animals including humans - our amazing bodies’, by learning about nutrition and food groups. We used identifying and classifying to sort the foods into the different food groups. We discussed what nutrition each group provides the body and how they help us to grow and develop. We also discussed what having balanced diet means and how snacks or sugary treats are ok once in a while. 

 

Well done to this pupil in class 3 for growing their own vegetables at home!

 

Today we investigated whether people with longer femurs could jump further. We made predictions, measured the femurs of everyone in our groups and then measured how far we could jump. We made sure that we all jumped from the same spot and did the same kind of jump. We found that some of the people with the shortest femurs could jump the furthest.

 

Class 11 went on a bug hunt and was identifying our school garden.

 

Today in Science class 11 worked together to create their own questions for a key to sort living things based on their characteristics.

 

Class 6 took part in a workshop about climate change. They learnt about where oxygen comes from and how it is getting used up as more people came on the planet and factories and the modern world took over. They also learnt how sunlight can get trapped in the carbon dioxide warming the planet, before they learnt about different types of energy that could be used. Class 6 then put on their wetsuits and became swimmers seeing fish, sharks and plastic bags in the ocean. They then discussed recycling and how they could help to take care of the planet. 

 

Last week Xana from Grow to School came into year 3. We started off in class designing and making parachutes for eggs.  We went outside to test them and had some brilliant designs that worked well to protect our eggs. We then went into our wildlife garden to harvest some of our lettuce we have grown. We all got to taste some of our delicious produce. 

 

This week in science class 8 have started a new topic all about our bodies. To start with we talked about what we already know and labelled an outline of a human body with where we think internal organs are. We then wrote down questions we would like to find out the answer to.

 

This week, Class 16 researched different life cycles. These included ducks, frogs, mammals and fish. Children then presented their research to the rest of the class, and we summarised the information, thinking about the listening ladder and the physical strand of our oracy framework.

 

Today we developed our oracy during science. We worked in teams to retrieve information from hidden research sheets. They had to develop their linguistic skills and use appropriate vocabulary to identify organs and describe the functions in the body.

 

A pupil from class 15 spent sometime in the nature garden with Mrs Best fixing the greenhouse from storm damage and fitting 2 water butts to make watering our plants in the warm weather much easier. He did a great job and was a real help.

 

Today class 7 continued our topic of forces in science. We conducted experiments on magnetism. 

 

Class 9 have been looking at the effects of different substances on teeth. We left chalk in substances such as Coke and orange juice for a week before inspecting them under the magnifying glass. We then discussed our findings. 

 

Year 6 children from class 14 enjoyed some time in the wildlife garden. They were learning about how plants have adapted to their environments over time. We looked at the cactus and how it has evolved to conserve as much water as it can. The children used items from around the garden to create a picture of a catus that they then labelled with it's adaptations. 

 

Here are class 11 dissolving chalk in Science.

 

Class 4 have been learning all about plants. We matched up pictures of parts of a plant and took it in turns to tell our groups what each part of the plant does.

 

Today in science we used magnets to test whether different materials are magnetic or non magnetic.

 

This week, we discusses pollution and how it affects metals. We had an oracy discussion based around different types of metals, and how air pollution can affect them. We then tested this, and are observing our results over time.

 

This week in science class 12 we have had an oracy focus. We have been discussing: are metals a sustainable material? And are electric cars good for the environment?

 

As part of science week, year 3 and 4 enjoyed an assembly from Grow to school. Grow to school have been working closely with year 3 since September and they were keen to share what they had been doing. 

 

As part of Science Week, Class 10 were exploring forces. We made paper aeroplanes and had a competition to see which flew the furthest - Ayra was our champion!

 

Curriculum - Science - Science Week Workshop

 

 

 

This years Science Week theme is curiosity. We are looking forward to workshops and fun interactive lessons taking place over this week. Today we had fun investigating whether paper aeroplanes, gliders or helicopters stay in the air the longest amount of time. We made our own adaptations to the designs to see if we could improve them. 

 

This week, we started our new topic on sustainable materials. We discussed hat sustainability is and what types of materials are sustainable. The children then made posters about different sustainable materials.  

 

Today marks the start of Science Week 2026! We started by reading ‘A tale of two shoes’ and thought about how we could design our own shoes to survive in different environments with ‘special adaptations’. We used all our creativity and imagination to develop these amazing shoes!

 

Today we investigated what surfaces have the most friction. 

We let vehicles roll down a ramp and we also used our measuring skills that we have been developing in our maths lessons to see how far the vehicles travelled. We repeated our tests 3 times. 

We discussed the validity of our results by discussing whether the ramps were the same height and the vehicles were the same. 

 

This week, the children were challenged to separate and collect different materials without using their hands. They used filtering techniques, tweezers and funnels to separate the mixtures. 

 

Children worked in groups to plan and carry out their investigation. We then put our data in a graph. This helped us to analyse and see patterns in the data. 

 

This week in science Class 12 have designed posters for the positive and negative impact of plastics.

 

Today we planned and set up our own investigations in science. We investigated whether moving an object closer to the light source effects the size of a shadow made.

 

This week in science class 12 were given the challenge of separating materials the fastest! They used different sized sieves and tweezers to complete the mission.

 

Today we designed our own recording system to observe the weather over the next few weeks. We discussed the data we might like to record and how often we would do it. We then created our own charts.

 

Curriculum - Science - Materials & Scientists

 

Children in Class 13 have been researching scientists who have used the properties of materials to create new inventions. Working collaboratively, they used their oracy skills to turn their research into presentations, which they then performed to the rest of the class. Please watch the videos below to see how they got on.

 

 

The weather forced us inside for our grow to school lesson today but Kat had some really fun activities for us in class, which we really enjoyed. First we played a game of bat and moth. Then we looked at and learned how to use garden tools safely. Next we planted some herb seeds and finally we identified some trees using a key. 

 

Today we learnt about the water cycle.We couldn’t believe we were drinking the same water as the dinosaurs! We developed our own space on a Minecraft platform to create our own version of the water cycle. We presented our creations to each other and explained the water cycle using scientific vocabulary. 

 

Class 7 had a fantastic time at our gardening session. We learnt about how bats use echolocation, how to handle our tools safely and how to identify different trees. We then finished the morning by making newspaper plant pots which we used to plant different herbs. 

 

The children had a fantastic time visiting The Deep in Hull, East Yorkshire—home to an incredible variety of marine life, including sharks, stingrays, the UK’s only pair of Green sawfish, hundreds of tropical reef fish, Loggerhead sea turtles, and a lively colony of Gentoo penguins. There was plenty to fascinate and engage visitors of all ages. During their visit, the children explored the attraction and took part in an educational workshop, “Our World’s Plastic Problem,” where they learned about the impact of plastic pollution on our oceans and what we can do to protect marine environments.

 

Year 2 have started their new topic 'Living things and their habitats' in Science. We went on a hunt around the playground looking for things that are living, used to be alive and never been alive.

 

Today in science we used data loggers to test how reflective different materials are. We worked in groups to make predictions and carefully test each material. After analysing our results we used what we had learned to design book bags with reflective strips.

 

This week in science the children have performed presentations on 4 scientist that influenced the world in the field of materials.

 

This week, we started our topic about properties of materials. The children first had a go at feeling different items in bags, and they tried to decipher what the items were based on their properties. Then, we categorised properties and definitions, and finally the children conducted an experiment, where they tested different materials for hardness, flexibility, transparency, permeability and magnetism. 

 

This week we looked at how fossils are formed. We matched up pictures of dinosaurs and fossils that have been found. We used our observation and oracy skills to give reasons why we thought the fossils matched the pictures. 

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