How do we teach Science at Nova?
At Nova, our children are taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science. We aim to foster a curiosity to understand how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave, and analyse causes – skills essential for life-long learning.
In EY, teachers plan opportunities for children to learn and understand the world around them through guided teaching and high quality continuous provision. We teach the national curriculum programs of study in Y1-Y6 and follow the CUSP curriculum. It is cumulative, coherent and connected. Across the Early Foundations and CUSP Primary Science sequence, careful thought has been given to how content has been sequenced so that students have the best chance of committing learning to their long-term memory. Complex concepts have been positioned throughout the long-term sequence so that pupils have the opportunity to revisit them and build on them over time. Vocabulary has been carefully mapped to ensure that pupils acquire the language needed to make sense of these concepts and explain their understanding of core curriculum content. Our curriculum focusses on the three domains in Science – Biology, Physics and Chemistry. These domains are introduced and connected in lessons to build coherent schema
We define knowledge as being substantive and disciplinary.
- Substantive knowledge is the subject knowledge and explicit vocabulary used to learn about the content.
- Disciplinary knowledge (working scientifically) is knowing how to collect, use, interpret, understand and evaluate the evidence from scientific processes.
Strong Start Blocks are provided each year to support teachers to introduce specific procedures and ‘working scientifically’ knowledge in advance of pupils using it. This helps to deepen their understanding of substantive knowledge.
When planning, teachers will assess children’s prior learning through and plan a careful sequence of learning opportunities for children to embed and apply key scientific knowledge, vocabulary and enquiry skills. Throughout each programme of study, children complete knowledge quizzes for teachers to assess children’s knowledge against key objectives. These scores are recorded for each programme of study to achievement and progress over time can be tracked.
You can read our science intent here: Science subject intent at Nova 2026
Below you will find out national curriculum coverage document as well as a link to our working scientifically progression document:
Science-working-scientifically-mapping
What does Science learning look like at Nova?
Resources:
Leadership
Jo Brocklebank is our Lead Scientist who you can speak to to find out more about how we teach Science at Nova.
Priorities:
To embed the CUSP science curriculum and ensure it fosters children’s retention of key scientific knowledge and ability to work scientifically.
Children have the opportunity to apply their scientific knowledge and vocabulary in high quality cross-curricular writing.
Teachers to receive support and guidance in teaching and assessing ‘scientific enquiry’ and supporting children’s understanding and retention of key vocabulary.