Programme of Study

Knowledge, Skills and Understanding

Teaching should ensure that scientific enquiry is taught through contexts taken from the sections on life processes and living things, materials and their properties and physical processes.

The general teaching requirement for health and safety applies to this subject. During key stage 1 pupils observe, explore and ask questions about living things, materials and phenomena. They begin to work together to collect evidence to help them answer questions and to link this to simple scientific ideas. They evaluate evidence and consider whether tests or comparisons are fair. They use reference materials to find out more about scientific ideas. They share their ideas and communicate them using scientific language, drawings, charts and tables.

Life processes

Pupils should be taught:

the differences between things that are living and things that have never been alive
that animals, including humans, move, feed, grow, use their senses and reproduce
to relate life processes to animals and plants found in the local environment

Humans and other animals

Pupils should be taught:

to recognise and compare the main external parts of the bodies of humans and other animals
that humans and other animals need food and water to stay alive
that taking exercise and eating the right types and amounts of food help humans to keep healthy
about the role of drugs as medicines
how to treat animals with care and sensitivity
that humans and other animals can produce offspring and that these offspring grow into adults
about the senses that enable humans and other animals to be aware of the world around them

Green plants

Pupils should be taught:

to recognise that plants need light and water to grow
to recognise and name the leaf, flower, stem and root of flowering plants
that seeds grow into flowering plants

Variation and classification

Pupils should be taught:

recognise similarities and differences between themselves and others, and to treat others with sensitivity
group living things according to observable similarities and differences

Living things in their environment

Pupils should be taught:

find out about the different kinds of plants and animals in the local environment
identify similarities and differences between local environments and ways in which these affect animals and plants that are found there
care for the environment