Science

“Community and environmental responsibility is encouraged, for example with our school-wide recycling system.”

At Willington, our aim is to make Science exciting and give children a passion for the subject. Throughout the school, our Science teaching aims to have a practical and experimental emphasis to encourage an intuitive understanding of topics covered. This is underpinned by a sound theoretical basis as the boys are prepared for the 13+ Common Entrance examination.

Science is taught in the Foundation Stage, Year 1 and Year 2 by class teachers. From Year 3, the children are taught by specialist Science teachers and from Year 4 upwards boys are taught in our dedicated Science laboratory, giving them the opportunity to familiarise themselves with more sophisticated Science apparatus and methods.

All three scientific disciplines are taught: Biology, Chemistry and Physics. These are taught on a rolling topic programme to enable the boys to concentrate on one discipline at a time while giving them the breadth of knowledge that they need.

In early 2008, we will have a new Science laboratory which will provide even more facilities such as a fume cupboard and even better ICT opportunities to support our current methods. It will enable us to keep up to date with more contemporary experiments and meet the needs of a more demanding Science curriculum as its role increases in importance in the wider world.

Our facilities and equipment allow us to go beyond the confines of the National Curriculum and we also include many trips and in-school activities which support and augment the work done in class.

For example, recent out-of-school trips include:

  • Port Lympne Wildlife Park (Years 4 and 5)
  • Royal Albert Hall for presentation about sound run by the Royal Institution (Year 5)
  • Deen City Farm (Year 6)
  • London Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre, Barnes including a pond-dipping activity (Year 7)
  • Natural History Museum Astronomy workshop (Year 8)

In-school activities are frequent and varied. For example:

  • Regular Science theatre company visits (Quantum theatre)
  • Visiting speakers and demonstrators, particularly during Willington Science Week, including:
    • actor playing Isaac Newton
    • Andrew Szydlo (seen on Channel 4) doing whiz-bang experiments
    • Animal Ark who bring in various animals including creepy crawlies
    • Mad Science assemblies and workshops

Community and environmental responsibility is encouraged, for example with our school-wide recycling system. The children also learn to care for animals such as the school fish, the chicks that hatched here at the end of last year, and we regularly hatch butterflies to learn about life cycles.

This gives just a very brief summary of some of the things we do in the Science department. There’s a lot going in Science at Willington, providing an exciting and stimulating learning environment for all.