What is science for primary school children?

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Ann Squires

Based on her considerable experience of local curriculum development, Ann Squires answers the first question posed by Jack Kerr and Elizabeth Engel. Science is seen ‘as a way of making a direct, first-hand relationship with the physical world — a way of making the environment itself answer the questions we ask about it’. Primary science introduces children to scientific ways of investigating the physical world and to ‘stepping-stone’ ideas from which official ideas will develop later. Her last two sentences are particularly important and challenging.