“We humans, alone on Earth, are powerful enough to create worlds, and then destroy them” - Sir David Attenborough
We want our young scientists to be explorers of the curious, investigating the world around them intelligently.
Science is embedded in the heritage of the United Kingdom with many of the world’s greatest discoveries being made by British scientists; Charles Darwin – the theory of evolution, Ada Lovelace – first computer programmer c1840, Tim Berners-Lee-Inventor of the world wide web and Stephen Hawking – physicist and cosmologist who published ‘A brief History of Time’. These incredible people have helped shape the way we live our lives and pave the way for a future not yet discovered. Children can be inspired by stories of scientists and their discoveries and with enthusiastic delivery can study the physical world where they can establish facts by inquiry, investigation and observation that will help them understand how the world works. In a modern and ambitious world like ours, science and its application are central to our economic future, our health and wellbeing as individuals and as a society.
Our Science department aims to develop scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding through the disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics which we teach in exciting and innovative ways. We want our students to have an understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science through different types of science enquiries that help them to answer scientific questions about the world around them and apply this throughout their time at The Gatwick School and beyond. They should be equipped with the scientific knowledge required to understand the uses and implications of science, today and for the future. We believe that science is a broad subject that encompasses and affects all disciplines, backgrounds, cultures and abilities and we want to celebrate that through the work we do with our students who are themselves from all aspects of society. We want our students to be aware of the impact of science for the world around them and society, and how this is growing in importance every day. They should be able to effectively communicate their ideas using scientific language and terminology to a variety of audiences, basing their opinions on sound scientific concepts.
Principles
Students should be given the opportunity to use, apply and, where possible, develop their understanding of the wider world through exploring scientific ideas.
We want students to understand how science can be important for all careers and life in general and underpins other areas of the curriculum in all subject areas.
To ensure students are equipped with the scientific principles of problem solving.