During key stage 3, pupils build on their scientific knowledge and understanding and use scientific ideas and models to explain events and phenomena, and to understand a range of familiar applications of science. They carry out investigations on their own and with others, and are able to evaluate their work, in particular the strength of the evidence they and others have collected. They learn to communicate clearly what they did and the significance of their results.
1. Life Processes and Living Things
Children are taught:
- about cells in animals and plants:
- how a cell works
- how particular cells carry out special tasks
- the role of cells in fertilisation and other life processes
- about the human body:
- nutrition
- movement
- sex
- how muscles move
- how lungs work
- what is needed for good health
- about green plants
- how plants and animals can be grouped into different species
- how features are inherited
- how different animals and plants grow in different environments
- how animals and plants depend on each other
At the end of Key Stage 3 (age 14), most children are able to:
- describe the main functions of human organs
- describe the main stages of the life cycle of flowering plants and humans, explaining how they are similar and different
- understand why classifying plants and animals is valuable
- explain how environmental conditions affect where different kinds of plants and animals can live
2. Materials and their Properties
Children are taught:
- about similarities and differences in chemical reactions
- about the pH scale
- about the behaviour of metals, acids and bases
- about the role of acids in the environment
- how a reactivity series can be used to predict reactions
- that chemical reactions make new materials, some of which might be desirable, whilst others may be undesirable
- how the particle theory of matter can explain the properties of solids, liquids and gases, elements, mixtures and compounds
- that materials dissolve at different rates, according to the liquid involved and its temperature
- about geology, including the ways that different kinds of rocks are formed
At the end of Key Stage 3 (age 14), most children are able to:
- describe how changes such as evaporation take place
- describe some properties of metals
- use their knowledge to sort metals from other solid materials
- use their knowledge about how a particular mixture can be separated to suggest ways to separate other mixtures
3. Physical Processes
Children are taught about:
- electricity and magnetism:
- wiring up circuits and making measurements of them
- magnetic fields
- electromagnets
- forces and movement:
- weight
- pressure
- friction
- turning forces
- light:
- how it moves
- how it is reflected, refracted, dispersed and filtered
- sound:
- how vibrations transmit sound
- how amplitude and frequency affect loudness and pitch
- the movement of the Earth and other planets in the solar system
- space exploration
- stars and satellites
- renewable and non-renewable energy resources
- energy transfer and storage
At the end of Key Stage 3 (age 14), most children are able to:
- use abstract ideas to describe familiar things
- use ideas about physical processes to explain how to make a range of changes
- use their knowledge of simple models to explain effects caused by the movement of the Earth
Scientific Enquiry
Through these three areas, pupils taught the methods of scientific enquiry. They think about the role of ideas and evidence in science, and learn how to do scientific investigations by planning them, finding and presenting evidence, thinking about what the evidence means, and asking what conclusions they can reach.
At the end of Key Stage 3 (age 14), most children are able to:
- explain how important scientists from history combined experimental evidence and creative thinking
- find the right approach for an enquiry
- choose the best equipment for an investigation
- select information from a range of sources
- carry out an investigation fairly, taking into account variables
- when it is possible, make predictions
- make observations, comparisons and measurements as accurately as possible
- record observations systematically
- give conclusions that fit the evidence
- use the right scientific language to communicate information
- make practical suggestions about how they can improve their working methods
