Finding out children’s initial ideas and starting points is important in order to tailor the learning experiences and address any misconceptions or gaps. An awareness of children’s prior learning can inform decisions about cognitive load, such as whether the children have pre-existing ideas and schema to build on, or whether the science content will largely be new or counter-inituitive, meaning smaller steps will need to be planned.

Elicitation activities can be done individually through discussion, annotated drawing or written tasks, but it can also be done through a whole class discussion. If needed, this can be recorded on an interactive whiteboard, a flipchart or in a floorbook.

For example, what do we already know about materials (Y2) or space (Y5)?

Year 2 at Milton Primary and Year 5 at Alexandra Juniors, Stoke on Trent