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Scientific skills: What are they and how can we ensure that they are taught well?

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Scientific skills: What are they and how can we ensure that they are taught well? The last post drew together all of the research and tools that St George's Primary are using to support staff CPD of Scientific Enquiry types so that we can confidently teach these techniques to children to enable them to "Think like a scientist" and deepen their own knowledge and understanding of the key concepts that they are learning across the breadth of the primary science curriculum. This week the focus is on scientific skills. It is important to have clarity that neither the enquiry types nor scientific skills are taught or used discreetly from one another. More often than not in a single lesson, the children may tap into different enquiry types as well as apply a range of scientific skills. Because of this, it is integral for staff to have clarity about what the focus assessment is for working scientifically across the course of a lesson, mapped across topics and therefore insurance...
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  Enquiry Types What do we mean by types of scientific enquiry? There is so much "jargon" and technical vocabulary across all aspects of the primary curriculum that we need to embed and become experts in ourselves before we can have the confidence to teach children. The aim of this week's post is to address what is actually meant by scientific enquiry types, what are the benefits and how this supports metacognition. We need to feel enabled and have a greater handle on what these enquiries are and why it is so important to ensure that we include these in our science lessons. Researching to find a "best fit" definition that I feel makes sense has led to ... "Scientific Enquiry  describes the processes and skills pupils should be taught and use, to find out more about the world and how it works ." Source ASE From that definition, the word "taught" is the word that to me seems most prominent. We cannot assume by "telling" which enquiry ...
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