What’s covered (at a glance)#
Key Stage 1:
- Plants and basic life cycles
- Animals (including humans)
- Everyday materials and their properties
- Seasonal changes
- Observing and describing the world scientifically
At this stage, I focus heavily on scientific vocabulary, questioning skills, and careful observation.
Lower KS2 (Y3–4):
- Rocks and soils
- Plant structure and function
- Animals, including nutrition and skeletons
- States of matter
- Sound
- Electricity
We begin building more formal investigative skills and recording methods.
Upper KS2 (Y5–6):
- Living things and classification
- The circulatory system
- Properties and changes of materials
- Earth and space
- Forces and mechanisms
Pupils develop deeper conceptual understanding and more structured scientific reasoning.
Across All Year Groups
- Working Scientifically
- Asking relevant questions
- Planning and carrying out fair tests
- Observing, measuring and recording accurately
- Classifying and identifying patterns
- Using results to draw conclusions
- Presenting data clearly (tables, bar charts, line graphs)
Common Sticky Spots in Science#
- Many pupils — particularly those with ADHD, autism, or AuDHD — find science challenging when ideas become abstract or involve multiple steps at once.
- Students may struggle with:
- Understanding invisible processes (particles, gravity, circuits)
- Linking cause and effect in scientific explanations
- Controlling variables in fair tests
- Recording results clearly and systematically
- Choosing and drawing the correct graph
- Reading scales and interpreting data
- Explaining conclusions using precise scientific vocabulary
- Managing practical tasks without becoming overwhelmed
For pupils with ADHD and/or autism, working memory demands, sensory distractions, and fast-changing instructions can make these tasks harder.
In my lessons, I break learning into clear steps, use visual supports and predictable routines, and give pupils time to process and respond. This helps make science feel structured, manageable and confidence-building.
How I support your child#
- Hands-on investigations with clear safety and structure.
- Diagrams, models, and simple experiments to make ideas concrete.
- Pre-teaching scientific vocabulary and sentence stems for explanations.
- Mini “maths-in-science” boosts for measures, tables, and graphs.
- Curiosity-first approach—questions are welcomed and valued.