primaryphysics

How much class time should you devote to working scientifically?

All of the ideas above are important, but time is short. We teach science at primary on average for 1 hour and 24 minutes per week (‘State of the nation’ report of UK primary science education (Wellcome Trust 2017). How should we allocate the time?

It probably makes sense to give each topic in the biology, chemistry and physics columns approximately equal time – the National Curriculum categorises the substantive knowledge into 20 topics in Key Stage 2 – so that’s 12 terms. You could teach one topic per half term and have two half terms spare. (This isn’t how we’ve chosen to do it at Paradigm Trust – we have used the 12 topics from the chart above and repeat them all in a spiral each year).