STRATA: Science To Raise And Track Achievement

Progression

Progression in skills

As the science process skills are generic across all aspects of science we also included in the scheme an overall progression grid from P6 to level 4 to enable teachers to see the development of the skills.  In the pre level 1 part of the scheme, scientific enquiry skills are beginning to develop and these emergent skills are only assessed from P6 onwards. In these early stages of skill development teacher support is very necessary.

Skills progression P 6 to Level 1

Notional half levels have been devised to help the teacher assess progress and demonstrate attainment.

Skills progression Level 1 to Level 4

Progression in knowledge

The main reason for including a large number of activities was to address the issue of age appropriateness and the fact that pupils may revisit the topic many times, often with the same teacher. However, this could present a problem when children move to a different class and the teacher is not sure which activities have already been covered.

This could be addressed by:

• Highlighting - the activities covered by a particular class on copies of the appropriate units could be highlighted. This information would then passed either to the science co-ordinator or the next teacher.  This part of the recording process will depend on the long term planning procedures and organisation within individual schools.
  

• Changing Focus - providing an appropriate focus each time the unit is revisited.  An example of how this could be achieved is given in the table of 'suggested focus for revisited topics for P1-NC Level 1'. As well as being progressive the revisited units focus on a different aspect of content.  Pupils will then be able to return to areas of knowledge and skills, but using different age appropriate materials to broaden their experience.