Science

At Meath School our Science curriculum gives learners practical opportunities to explore and enjoy their physical environment with maximum use being made of the woodlands, open space and gardens. Opportunities to talk about and share their observations, predictions and investigations are continuously promoted and integral to our approach to facilitate children’s learning.

We recognise and value the importance of Science in everyday life. We aim to develop the children’s interests, knowledge and understanding of the world, whilst working scientifically to develop and grow an enquiring mind.

The curriculum responds dynamically to pupils’ specific interests to motivate how and what they learn, extending their skills and knowledge. The Science curriculum fosters a healthy curiosity in the children about our universe, enabling them to interact effectively with their environment whilst nurturing their understanding of how to keep themselves safe, respect other living things and grow as successful learners.  We aim to achieve this through providing children opportunities to learn with ‘real life’, experiential and relevant opportunities in a personalised curriculum that responds to, and reflects, the individual children.

Aims for our pupils at Meath:

We understand that it is important for our children to learn through lessons that have a skills-based focus, and that the knowledge can be taught through this. The science curriculum is taught through and clearly related to the substantive science content in the programme of study. The current National Curriculum for Science aims to ensure that all children:

· develop scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics

· develop understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science through different types of science enquiries that help them to answer scientific questions about the world around them

· are equipped with the scientific skills required to understand the uses and implications of science, today and for the future.

We incorporate these aims above into our Science curriculum at Meath School and enable children to work scientifically by providing:

· An enjoyable and engaging multi-sensory experiences to stimulate a sense of curiosity supported by occupational therapy, providing children to opportunities to identify, group and classify, observe, describe, compare, and question the world around them.

· A framework of structured ‘hands-on’ experiences which encourage children to explore scientific ideas, share ideas, use simple equipment and talk about the scientific skills they are developing and in turn, draw links in their understanding of how Science is integral to real life situations.

· An integrated language programme to support and promote the acquisition of basic scientific concepts and vocabulary.

· Opportunities for our learners to demonstrate and increase their scientific potential in practical situations where the effect of their language difficulties is minimised.