Science

• Plants: parts and needs: Roots, stem, leaves and flowers, and what plants need to grow: light, water, warmth and air.
• Plant life cycles and reproduction: Seeds and germination, flowers, pollination, fertilisation and seed dispersal.
• Animals and their groups: Fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals; carnivores, herbivores and omnivores.
• The human body and senses: Parts of the body and the five senses.
• Food, exercise and health: Food groups, a balanced diet, exercise, hygiene and sleep.
• Living things and habitats: Living, dead and never alive; habitats and microhabitats; how environments change.
• Adaptation: How plants and animals are suited to where they live.
• Everyday materials: Wood, metal, plastic, glass and fabric: their properties and what we use them for.
• Dissolving and solutions: Solutes, solvents and solutions, soluble and insoluble, saturated solutions and solubility.
• Physical and chemical changes: Reversible and irreversible changes: melting and dissolving versus burning and rusting.
• Seasons and day length: The four seasons, the weather in each and how day length changes.
• Weather and climate: Measuring the weather, clouds, wind and rain, and climates around the world.
• SI units and measurement: SI units, prefixes, significant figures and measuring instruments.
• Forces: Pushes, pulls, friction, balanced and unbalanced forces.
• Weight and mass: W = m g, and gravity on other planets.
• Springs and Hooke’s law: Stretching springs, the spring constant and elastic energy.
• Moments and levers: Turning effects, levers, gears and balancing.
• Pressure: Pressure on surfaces, in liquids and in gases.
• Friction, drag and terminal velocity: Friction, air and water resistance, streamlining, terminal velocity and the coefficient of friction.
• Simple machines: Levers, pulleys, gears, ramps and wheels-and-axles; mechanical advantage.
• Upthrust, floating and sinking: Upthrust, Archimedes’ principle, and why things float or sink.
• Speed: Speed, distance–time graphs and average speed.
• Energy stores and transfers: Energy stores, transfers, conservation and efficiency.
• Energy resources: Fossil fuels, nuclear and renewable resources, pros and cons.
• Conduction, convection and radiation: How heat moves, insulators and conductors.
• Thermal expansion: Expansion of solids, liquids and gases, bimetallic strips and ΔL = αLΔT.
• Current, voltage and resistance: Current, potential difference, resistance and V = IR.
• Series and parallel circuits: Circuit symbols, series and parallel rules.
• Static electricity: Charging by friction, attraction, repulsion and electric fields.
• Electrical power and energy: P = IV, kilowatt-hours, the cost of electricity and the mains.
• Simple circuits: Complete loops, cells, bulbs, switches, circuit symbols and why bulbs get brighter or dimmer.
• Conductors and insulators: Which materials let electricity through, how to test them, and why wires are copper inside plastic.
• Mains electricity and safety: Staying safe with electricity, the mains supply, live, neutral and earth wires, fuses and RCDs.
• Magnets and magnetic fields: Poles, attraction, repulsion and field lines.
• Electromagnets and motors: Fields around wires, electromagnets, the motor effect and F = BIL.
• Sound: Vibrations, pitch, loudness, echoes and how we hear.
• Wave properties: Wavelength, frequency, amplitude and v = fλ.
• Light and reflection: Light travels in straight lines, shadows and mirrors.
• Refraction: Bending light, Snell’s law and total internal reflection.
• Colour: White light, prisms, filters and why things look coloured.
• Light and shadows: Light sources, how we see, transparent, translucent and opaque materials, and how shadows change.
• Particles and states of matter: Solids, liquids and gases, and changes of state.
• Density: Density = mass ÷ volume, floating and measuring density.
• States of matter and changes of state: Solids, liquids and gases, melting, boiling, evaporation and the water cycle.
• Atoms and isotopes: Protons, neutrons, electrons, isotopes and models of the atom.
• The solar system: The Sun, the planets and their moons, asteroids and comets.
• Gravity and orbits: Gravity, orbits, satellites and light years.
• Stars, galaxies and the Big Bang: The life cycle of stars, red shift and the expanding universe.
• Earth, Sun and Moon: Day and night, years and seasons, phases of the Moon, eclipses, tides and time zones.
• Cells and cell structure: Animal, plant and bacterial cells, their parts and specialised cells.
• Microscopes and magnification: Using a microscope, magnification = image size ÷ real size, and units.
• The digestive system: Teeth, the digestive organs and what happens to food on its way through.
• The heart and circulation: The heart, blood vessels, blood, double circulation and cardiac output.
• Breathing and gas exchange: Lungs, breathing in and out, alveoli and gas exchange.
• Skeleton, muscles and movement: Bones, joints, antagonistic muscles and the jobs of the skeleton.
• Human reproduction and growth: Growing up and puberty, the reproductive systems, fertilisation and pregnancy.
• Photosynthesis: How plants make glucose, limiting factors and the rate of photosynthesis.
• Respiration: Aerobic and anaerobic respiration, exercise and oxygen debt, and metabolism.