What a child will be able to do
- Working scientifically: ask testable questions; plan a fair test (one thing at a time); take and record measurements; present results in a chart; say what the results show
- Living things: group living things by observable features; use and build classification keys; describe life cycles; describe adaptation; explain the human digestive system, teeth, skeleton, muscles and circulation; describe a plant and how water travels
- Materials & physical processes: compare materials by properties; explain solids, liquids, gases and changes of state; explain forces; explain how light and sound travel
Part 1 — Working scientifically
This is the skill the whole subject is built on. A fair test: change one thing, keep everything else the same, measure what happens.
| Variable | Meaning | Example (which bedding absorbs most water) |
|---|---|---|
| You change | The one thing that's different | The type of bedding |
| You measure | What you're finding out | How much water it absorbs |
| You keep the same | Everything else | Amount of bedding, amount of water, time, container |
If you test two beddings and one gets more water and more time, you don't know which caused the difference. One change at a time.
Planning an investigation
Question → prediction (and why) → plan (what to change, measure, keep the same) → do it (repeat 3 times) → record (table) → present (chart) → conclude → evaluate (was it fair?).
One result might be a fluke. Three lets you spot an odd one and take an average. A result very different from the others is an anomaly — say so, and don't include it in the average.
Presenting results
Separate categories (types of bedding) → bar chart. Continuous data over time (temperature each hour) → line graph. Two things compared (height against age) → scatter graph.
Part 2 — Living things & their habitats
Grouping living things — vertebrates (with a backbone)
| Group | Features |
|---|---|
| Mammals | Fur or hair, warm-blooded, feed young on milk, live young |
| Birds | Feathers, beak, warm-blooded, lay eggs |
| Reptiles | Dry scaly skin, cold-blooded, lay eggs on land |
| Amphibians | Moist skin, cold-blooded, lay eggs in water, live in water and on land |
| Fish | Wet scales, gills, cold-blooded, live in water |
Invertebrates have no backbone: insects, spiders, snails, worms, crabs. Sorting the animals at a centre: a hedgehog is a mammal (fur — spines are modified hairs — feeds young on milk); a bearded dragon is a reptile (dry scaly skin, lays eggs); a tarantula is an invertebrate (no backbone, eight legs).
Classification keys — yes/no questions that lead to the answer
It must be answerable by looking, and the answer must be yes or no. ✅ "Does it have fur?" ❌ "Is it friendly?" (opinion) ❌ "What colour is it?" (not yes/no).
Life cycles & adaptation
Mammal: born live → grows → adult → young. Amphibian: egg (spawn) → tadpole → froglet → frog — metamorphosis. Insect: egg → larva → pupa → adult. Living things have features that help them survive where they live: a hedgehog's spines (protection from predators) and being nocturnal (avoids day predators; insects active at night); a tortoise's shell; a bird's hollow bones (lighter for flight).
Not "what does it have" — anyone can list features. Why it helps the animal survive is the science.
Part 3 — Animals including humans
Teeth
| Tooth | Job |
|---|---|
| Incisor | Cutting and biting |
| Canine | Tearing |
| Premolar & Molar | Crushing and grinding |
Diet changes teeth: a carnivore (cat, snake) has large sharp canines for meat; a herbivore (rabbit, tortoise) has flat molars and no large canines; an omnivore (human, hedgehog) has a mixture.
Grinding tough plants wears teeth down, so a rabbit's incisors grow continuously to replace what's worn away. This is why a rabbit needs hay — without something tough to chew, the teeth keep growing and don't wear down, which becomes a serious welfare problem. Science and animal care are the same thing here.
The digestive system
Mouth → oesophagus → stomach → small intestine → large intestine → rectum → anus. Teeth and saliva break food up; the stomach churns it with acid; the small intestine absorbs nutrients into the blood; the large intestine absorbs water.
Skeleton, muscles & circulation
The skeleton does three things: support, protection, movement. Muscles work in pairs and can only pull, not push — to bend your arm the biceps contracts and the triceps relaxes; to straighten it, the reverse. The heart pumps blood (carrying oxygen, nutrients and waste) through arteries, veins and capillaries. Exercise makes your heart beat faster because muscles need more oxygen, so blood is pumped round more quickly.
Part 4 — Plants
| Part | Job |
|---|---|
| Roots | Anchor the plant; absorb water and minerals |
| Stem | Supports the plant; transports water |
| Leaves | Make food by photosynthesis |
| Flower | Reproduction |
A plant needs: light, water, air (carbon dioxide), nutrients from soil, room to grow.
Grow four identical seedlings. Give one no light, one no water, one no soil, and one everything. Watch for two weeks — a fair test with one variable changed, that takes almost nothing to set up.
The life cycle of a flowering plant
Pollination (pollen moves flower to flower, by insects or wind) → fertilisation (pollen joins the ovule) → seed formation → seed dispersal (wind, water, animals, explosion) → germination.
If all the seeds fell under the parent plant, they would compete with it and each other for light, water and space. Dispersal reduces competition — and that links straight to adaptation.
Part 5 — Materials
Properties: hard/soft · flexible/rigid · transparent/opaque · waterproof/absorbent · magnetic/non-magnetic · conductor/insulator.
Only iron, steel, nickel and cobalt are magnetic. Aluminium and copper are not — which surprises children.
Solids, liquids and gases
| State | Shape | Volume | Particles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solid | Fixed | Fixed | Close together, vibrating in place |
| Liquid | Takes container's shape | Fixed | Close together, moving past each other |
| Gas | Fills the container | Changes | Far apart, moving quickly |
Changes of state
Melting (solid→liquid, ice to water) · freezing (liquid→solid) · evaporating (liquid→gas, puddle drying) · condensing (gas→liquid, water on a cold window). Water freezes at 0°C and boils at 100°C. The water cycle: evaporation → condensation → precipitation → collection → round again.
Reversible (you can get the original back): melting, freezing, evaporating, dissolving salt in water. Irreversible (a new material is made): burning, cooking an egg, mixing vinegar and bicarbonate of soda.
Part 6 — Forces
A force is a push or a pull, measured in newtons (N).
| Force | What it does |
|---|---|
| Gravity | Pulls everything towards the Earth |
| Friction | Slows moving things where surfaces rub |
| Air / water resistance | Slows things moving through air or water |
| Upthrust | Pushes things up in water — makes them float |
| Magnetism | Attracts or repels magnetic materials |
Mass is how much matter is in something, measured in kilograms. Weight is the force of gravity on it, measured in newtons. On the Moon your mass would be the same but your weight less, because the Moon's gravity is weaker.
Friction & magnets
Friction happens when surfaces rub — it slows things down and makes heat. Rough surfaces give more friction; smooth surfaces (ice, oil) give less. It's useful (brakes, shoe grips, holding a pencil) and a nuisance (wear on machinery, energy wasted as heat). Magnets have a north and south pole — opposite poles attract, like poles repel — they attract only iron, steel, nickel and cobalt, and work through materials and at a distance.
Part 7 — Light and sound
Light
Light travels in straight lines — from a source, into your eye, and that's how you see. A light source makes its own light (sun, lamp, flame); reflection is light bouncing off a surface; a shadow forms when an opaque object blocks light. Shadows are the same shape as the object because light can't bend round it, and moving the object closer to the light makes the shadow bigger.
Sound
Sound is made by vibrations, which travel through a medium (solid, liquid or gas) to your ear. Pitch is how high or low (faster vibrations = higher); volume is how loud (bigger vibrations = louder). Sound gets quieter with distance as the vibrations spread out, and sound cannot travel through a vacuum — no particles to vibrate, so space is silent.
Some animals hear far better than humans — hedgehogs rely on hearing more than sight. Test how far away a sound can be heard: change the distance, keep the sound the same, record where it stops being audible. Then ask: why would good hearing matter to a nocturnal animal?
Practice questions (57 marks)
Answers are in the answer key below.
Section A — Working scientifically (7)
- A child tests which bedding absorbs the most water. (a) What should she change? (1) (b) What should she measure? (1) (c) Name two things she should keep the same. (2) (d) Why repeat the test three times? (1)
- Results: 12 ml, 13 ml, 45 ml, 12 ml. (a) Which is the anomaly? (1) (b) What should she do about it? (1)
Section B — Living things (18)
- Name the five vertebrate groups. (5)
- Give two features of a reptile. (2)
- Is a tarantula a vertebrate or an invertebrate? How do you know? (2)
- Write a good key question for sorting animals. Explain why it's good. (2)
- Describe the life cycle of a frog. (3)
- Give two ways a hedgehog is adapted to survive, and explain each. (4)
Section C — Humans and plants (15)
- Name the four types of tooth and what each does. (4)
- Why do rabbits' teeth keep growing? (2)
- Put the digestive system in order: stomach, mouth, large intestine, small intestine, oesophagus. (1)
- Why does your heart beat faster when you exercise? (2)
- Name the four main parts of a plant and give the job of each. (4)
- Why do plants need to disperse their seeds? (2)
Section D — Materials and forces (11)
- Give two differences between a solid and a gas. (2)
- Name the change of state when a puddle dries up. (1)
- Give one reversible and one irreversible change. (2)
- What is the difference between mass and weight? (2)
- Give one way friction is useful and one way it's a nuisance. (2)
- A magnet is held near an aluminium can. What happens, and why? (2)
Section E — Light and sound (6)
- Why can you not see in a completely dark room? (2)
- What happens to a shadow when the object moves closer to the light? (1)
- How is sound made? (1)
- Why is there no sound in space? (2)
Answers
Section A
1. (a) The type of bedding. (b) How much water is absorbed. (c) Any two: amount of bedding, amount of water, time left, size of container, temperature. (d) To check the results are reliable / spot an odd result / take an average.
2. (a) 45 ml. (b) Ignore it when working out the average, and say in the conclusion it was an anomaly (accept: repeat that test).
Section B
3. Mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish. 4. Any two: dry scaly skin · cold-blooded · lays eggs on land · has lungs. 5. Invertebrate (1) — it has no backbone (1) (accept: eight legs and an exoskeleton). 6. Any observable yes/no question, e.g. "Does it have fur?" (1); good because you can answer it just by looking, and the answer is yes or no (1). 7. Egg/spawn (1) → tadpole (1) → froglet → adult frog (1). 8. Two adaptations, 2 marks each: spines (1) protect it when it curls up (1); nocturnal (1) avoids day predators and its insect food is active at night (1); good sense of smell (1) finds food in the dark (1).
Section C
9. Incisor — cutting · canine — tearing · premolar — crushing · molar — grinding. 10. They eat tough plants which wear the teeth down (1), so the teeth keep growing to replace what's worn away (1). 11. Mouth → oesophagus → stomach → small intestine → large intestine. 12. Muscles need more oxygen when exercising (1), so the heart pumps faster to deliver blood more quickly (1). 13. Roots — anchor and absorb water · stem — support and transport · leaves — make food · flower — reproduction. 14. So seeds don't grow right next to the parent (1) and compete for light, water and space (1).
Section D
15. Any two: solid has a fixed shape, gas fills its container; solid has fixed volume, gas doesn't; solid particles close together and vibrating, gas particles far apart and fast. 16. Evaporation. 17. Reversible — melting, freezing, evaporating, dissolving; irreversible — burning, cooking, mixing vinegar and bicarb. 18. Mass is the amount of matter, in kilograms (1); weight is the force of gravity on it, in newtons (1). 19. Useful — brakes, grip, holding things (1); nuisance — wears out machinery, wastes energy as heat (1). 20. Nothing happens (1) — aluminium is not magnetic; only iron, steel, nickel and cobalt are (1).
Section E
21. There is no light source (1), and you can only see when light enters your eye (1). 22. It gets bigger. 23. By vibrations. 24. Space is a vacuum with no particles (1), and sound needs particles to vibrate to travel (1).
The mistakes to watch for
Changing more than one thing in a test. Then you don't know which caused the result.
Thinking all metals are magnetic. Only iron, steel, nickel and cobalt.
Saying spines are "for protection" without saying from what. Predators. Be specific.
Confusing mass and weight. Kilograms and newtons.
Saying a shadow is a reflection. A shadow is where light is blocked.
Thinking sound travels in space. No particles, no sound.
Listing an adaptation without explaining why it helps. The "why" is the science.
Teaching notes
Working scientifically is the whole subject. A child who can plan a fair test can investigate anything. A child who has memorised the vertebrate groups can only answer questions about vertebrate groups. Spend the time on the method.
Do the investigations. They're cheap and take twenty minutes — which bedding absorbs most water, which surface has most friction, whether a plant grows without light. Children who have done it remember it; children who read about it don't.
Use real animals for classification. Sorting a list on a worksheet is one thing; sorting the actual animals in front of you — is a hedgehog a mammal, and how do you know when it's covered in spines? — is another entirely.
The rabbit-teeth point is worth making explicitly. It's the moment where a science fact and a welfare rule turn out to be the same thing, and children who keep animals find it genuinely useful.
Anomalies should be taught, not hidden. Children think an odd result means they did it wrong. It usually means something interesting happened. Teaching them to name it and set it aside is real scientific practice.
This unit feeds directly into KS3. Classification becomes the five kingdoms; teeth and digestion become enzymes; adaptation becomes natural selection. Time spent here isn't preparation for GCSE — it is GCSE, in a simpler form.