Progression in the Curriculum Framework

Science

In order to show how the progression of knowledge develops over the years, lets look at how four strands in one subject, Science , develop over the three years of Cambridge Secondary 1. In the strand Scientific Enquiry, which is a strand running through all the component sciences, one substrand of learning objectives covers the planning of investigative work. At stage 7 learners should be able to discuss and suggest ideas that can be tested. By stage 8 the focus shifts to thinking about how the ideas could be tested and what form the tests could take. This is built on further in stage 9, where learners produce test plans, drawing on knowledge understanding and research that they will have carried out in the subject based strands of Biology, Physics and Chemistry. In Biology, we can see one example here of how Biological knowledge progresses in the food breakdown topic, going into more detailed study at the stages progress.. At stage 7, in studying cells and organisms, learners study the role of micro-organisms. At Stage 8 they go into more detail, focussing on the study of humans as organisms, including how enzymes function. At stage 9 they develop this study into the bigger picture of living things in their environments, looking at energy flow and how food chains function.

In Chemistry, under the study of Material properties, learners start in stage 7 by looking at the visible physical properties of everyday objects. In stage 8 they have looked at the elements that constitute materials and have an understanding that those elements are made up of atoms. By stage 9 they are looking in even more detail at atomic structure itself and how the atomic model was developed.

Looking at how energy is studied in Physics, at stage 7, the learners should be able to recognise that there are different forms of energy and that energy is transferred from one form into another. In stage 8, they study in more detail the physics of sound energy, light energy and magnetic energy and at stage 9 they are looking at the bigger picture again to look at the energy needs of the world and how these are met.