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Section 3

Strands and Targets

This section provides extended exemplification of attainment targets for knowledge and understanding and for skills.

These extended descriptions are offered solely as examples of the kinds of activities that teachers may use to support the development of knowledge and understanding, skills and informed attitudes. They are not intended to be prescriptive, or restrictive, and teachers might have already developed, or might wish to develop, alternative activities to support the learning of their pupils. It also gives further advice and exemplification of learning activities that can be incorporated within existing topics and courses to encourage pupils in developing informed attitudes.

This additional advice outlined in the teacher's notes should help teachers to judge the extent of teaching and learning required and the depth of understanding expected for particular levels and targets.

Progression in science

Progression in pupils' learning in science rests in part on the development of programmes of study in which the level of demand of investigative tasks and other learning activities is varied as appropriate. The features that need to be taken into account when planning for progression are:

  • the extent to which the context is familiar and immediate or unfamiliar and far-reaching
  • the level of difficulty of concepts and theories associated with the task
  • the extent to which the task is concerned with more abstract reasoning
  • whether the task is concerned with the quantitative rather than the qualitative and descriptive
  • the complexity of the activity, for example, the range of variables involved in an investigative task
  • the extent to which the teacher supports the task
  • the openness of the task.

    In the early stages, pupils will be closely directed towards the tasks that they carry out. As they increase in maturity and assume greater independence in their learning they will be more often able to consider questions for investigation, and to plan, implement and give due consideration to safety.

    Progression is seen to be made when pupils progress:
  • from using everyday language to using technical and scientific vocabulary more precisely
  • from describing a science idea to explaining a scientific idea
  • from participating in practical activities to testing ideas in practical ways, for example fair testing
  • from unstructured exploration to more systematic investigation of a question
  • from accepting ideas and theories uncritically to recognising that new evidence may require          reconsideration of ideas
  • from using an idea to solving a problem in an unfamiliar context.

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