Science National Curriculum

Progression in Chemistry

Subject Key Objective Progression & Development by Year Group

The following is a guide to help you understand your child's progression through school.

All lessons are effectively differentiated to ensure that all children can achieve the objective set.

Chemistry Knowledge - EYFS

In EYFS, children will:

• explore materials with different properties;
• explore collections of materials with similar and/or different properties;
• talk about the differences between materials and changes they notice.

Chemistry Knowledge - Year 1

In Year 1, children will:

• know the name of the materials an object is made from;
• identify and name a variety of everyday materials, including wood, plastic, glass, metal, water and rock;
• know about the properties of everyday materials;
• compare and group together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of their simple physical properties.

Chemistry Knowledge - Year 2

In Year 2, children will:

• know how materials can be changed by squashing, bending, twisting and stretching;
• know why a material might or might not be used for a specific job

Chemistry Knowledge - Year 3

In Year 3, children will:

• compare and group rocks based on their appearance and physical properties, giving reasons;
• know how soil is made and how fossils are formed;
• recognise that soils are made from rocks and organic matter; 
• know about and can explain the difference between sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rock.

Chemistry Knowledge - Year 4

In Year 4, children will:

• compare and group materials together, according to whether they are solids, liquids or gases;
• observe that some materials change state when they are heated or cooled and measure or research the temperature at which this happened in degrees Celsius;
• know the part played by evaporation and condensation in the water cycle and associate evaporation with temperature.

Chemistry Knowledge - Year 5

In Year 5, children will:

• compare and group materials based on their properties (e.g. hardness, solubility, transparency, conductivity, [electrical & thermal], and response to magnets;
• give reasons, based on evidence from comparative and fair tests for the particular uses of everyday materials, including metals, wood and plastic;
• know and can explain how a material dissolves to form a solution; 
• know and can show how to recover a substance from a solution;
• use their knowledge of solids, liquids and gases to decide how materials can be separated (e.g. through filtering, sieving and evaporating); 
• demonstrate that dissolving, mixing and changes of state are reversible changes;
• explain how some changes result in the formation of a new material and that this is usually irreversible – include burning and acid on bicarbonate of soda.