Learn teaching strategies and tools to make the transition to online primary science teaching easier during the COVID-19 pandemic.

- Duration2 weeks
- Weekly study3 hours
- 100% onlineTry this course for free
Teaching for Home Learning: Primary Science
Keep your primary school students inspired by science whilst learning at home
Primary school science teaching often involves sparking students’ imagination through practical activities.
As schools close due to the coronavirus pandemic, primary science teachers must learn innovative new ways of teaching young students science using online and offline learning.
On this course, you’ll consider the new learning environment of your pupils, the role of parents in your teaching, and discover new science activities your pupils can do from home.
You’ll explore a variety of asynchronous teaching and learning tools, and have the chance to collaborate and discuss these new challenges with other teachers.
Syllabus
Week 1
Expectations, working with parents and planning activities
Setting expectations and involving parents
What expectations do you have of yourself, pupils and parents?
Planning a remote learning activity
Starting to think about the components of a learning sequence.
Setting activities remotely
Our final steps this week provides an introduction to the importance of instructions, and prompts you to consider the role of video for remote learning.
Week 2
Activities for home learning and scientific enquiry
Enabling parents to support learning
Parents play a vital role in supporting their children's learning. How can we support them so that they feel confident to do this?
Tools for remote learning
Here we explore some quick ways to check pupils' progress.
Practical science
Scientific enquiries are a great way to keep children engaged with science. Build up your strategies for a range of enquiry types.
Reviewing your professional development
Review your professional development and plan your next steps to sustain and develop the way you plan for learning.
When would you like to start?
Start straight away and learn at your own pace. If the course hasn’t started yet you’ll see the future date listed below.
Available now
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Design a blended approach to teaching primary science, with offline and online activities to support pupils learning from home.
- Develop your plans to work with parents to support pupils learning at home.
- Evaluate a range of teaching strategies and tools, appropriate to your teaching context and teaching remotely.
- Identify primary science activities that can be undertaken at home.
Who is the course for?
This course is designed for primary teachers of pupils aged 5-11 years, who are supporting parents and pupils with learning from home due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Science and STEM subject leaders and heads of primary schools may also find this course useful for devising their approach to home teaching.
Who will you learn with?
I taught science for ten years and was Head of Science for three years, before becoming a subject specialist at the National STEM Learning Centre.
Online CPD Coordinator, STEM Learning. MEng MA Senior Certified Learning Technologist. I work with expert authors to design impactful CPD for teachers and STEM Ambassadors www.stem.org.uk/online-cpd
I have worked as, and enjoyed being, a classroom teacher for many years. I am currently working as an independent primary science consultant and a National STEM Learning lead facilitator.
Learner reviews
Join this course
Free
Join free and you will get:
- Access to this course for 4 weeks
Upgrade
Upgrade this course and you will get:
- Access to this course for as long as it’s on FutureLearn
- A print and digital Certificate of Achievement once you’re eligible
Unlimited
Buy Unlimited and you will get:
- Access to this course, and hundreds of other FutureLearn short courses and tests for a year
- A printable digital Certificate of Achievement on all short courses once you’re eligible
- The freedom to keep access to any course you've achieved a digital Certificate of Achievement on, for as long as the course exists on FutureLearn
- The flexibility to complete your choice of short courses in your own time within the year
Find out more about upgrades or Unlimited.
Available until 1 April 2021 at 23:59 (UTC). T&Cs apply.
Do you know someone who’d love this course? Tell them about it...
You can use the hashtag #FLSTEMHomeTeaching to talk about this course on social media.