EVOLUTION AND INHERITANCE (BIOLOGY)

Statements in red are linked from other topics

Progression in Scientific

knowledge, concepts & skills

EYFS (Early Learning Goals)

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Year 6

KS3

Concepts

Adaptation

Variation

Changes

Evolution

Growth

Similarity and Difference

Working Scientifically

Children know about similarities and difference in relation to places, objects, materials and living things

Children talk about features of their own immediate environment and how environments might vary from one another

Children make observations of animals and plants and explain why some things occur and talk about changes

Identify that most living things live in habitats to which they are suited and describe how different habitats provide for the basic needs of different kinds of animals and plants, and how they depend on each other (Living things and their Habitats) 

Describe in simple terms how fossils are formed when things that have lived are trapped within rock (Rocks)

Recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers to living things (Living things and their Habitats) 

Know that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the earth millions of years ago

Recognise that living things produce offspring of the same kind (normally different to parents)

Know how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environments and that adaptation may lead to evolution

Darwin

Heredity as the process by which genetic information is transmitted from one generation to the next.

A simple model of chromosomes, genes and DNA in heredity, including the part played by Watson, Crick, Wilkins and Franklin in the development of the DNA model.

The variation between species and between individuals of the same species means some organisms compete more successfully, which can drive natural selection

Changes in the environment may leave individuals within a species, and some entire species, less well adapted to compete successfully and reproduce, which in turn may lead to extinction

Possible learning questions

Have we always looked like this?

Why don’t all Humans look the same?