Melbourn Village College

Key stage 3 Science

Aims and purposes of Science at MVC

Key stage 3 science offers opportunities for students to:

• be stimulated about phenomena in the world around them and to offer opportunities to find explanations
• build on their scientific knowledge and understanding from key stage 2 and make connections between different areas of science;
• use scientific ideas and models to explain phenomena and events;
• understand a range of familiar applications of science;
• think about the advantages and drawbacks of scientific and technological developments for the environment and in other contexts, considering the reasons for different opinions;
• carry out investigations of different types, on their own and in groups, making use of reference sources and evaluating their work;
• communicate what they did and its significance;
• learn how scientists work and the importance of experimental evidence in supporting scientific ideas.
• to trace the development of science world wide and recognize its cultural significance

In KS3 students are taught Science in Units. A Unit may consist of up to 9 lessons based on a specific topic. (See tables below for lists of Units). The students have 3 x 1hour lessons a week and are generally taught by one science teacher

Assessment:

The Science department aims to use assessment to promote learning wherever possible.  Students are encouraged to compare their work with their own targets, rather than with other students in the class. 

• In KS3 students generally complete at least one piece of assessed work per unit.  These may be given as homework or completed in class
• Most of these are “APP – assessing pupils’ progress” tasks taken from the APP Badger published series. 
• Students will be given a sub level, which is recorded on departmental spreadsheets and in their own class book.
• Students will be given an indication of one thing they did well and one improvement target for each assessment (students or peers may give the improvement target, rather than the teacher). These will be  noted, either by the student or the teacher, at the front of the student’s science class book.

Homework:

• Homework is set once a week and can be of a variety of tasks i.e research, posters, questions, graphs, planning experiments etc. The homework should take at least half an hour.

Books:

• In class the Science Works series is used by Oxford University Press. Students will be able to access these as Ebooks on the VLE. 

Internet/ICT resources:

• www.bbc.co.uk/schools/KS3bitesize,  MVC VLE (http://www.ourvle.co.uk/moodle17/)