At both key stages the knowledge progression takes full account of the national curriculum's strands of:

• Physics

• Maths

• Biology

• Working Scientifically

Skills are dependent on specific knowledge. A skill is the capacity to perform and in order to perform a deep body of knowledge needs to be acquired and retained.

There are more assessments in science because the national curriculum specifies on a year-by-year basis what has to be taught. In addition, science is a core subject and should have more time devoted to it than non-core.

The working scientifically part does not conform with the knowledge-rich system as it is checking on pupils’ ability to, amongst other things, carry out research, ask questions and carry out tests. The working scientifically statements should be assessed as an on-going feature of the science lessons, whilst the scientific knowledge should be assessed away from the point of teaching.

When considering pupils’ improvement in subject specific vocabulary, pupils could be provided with a knowledge organiser which contains the relevant words used for science for their age group.