Circuits - Lesson Plan

The lesson plan from The Primary Science Advisory Service Ltd is designed to deepen Year 6 students' understanding of electricity and circuits. The lesson objectives align with the National Curriculum, aiming to associate the brightness of a lamp or the volume of a buzzer with the number of cells and voltage used in the circuit. Students will compare how components like bulbs and buzzers function differently and use standard symbols to represent simple circuits in diagrams. Prior learning from Year 4 sets the foundation, where students constructed simple series electrical circuits and identified the role of switches. The lesson also links to Year 5's curriculum on material properties, and cross-curricular connections are made with design technology and history, encouraging students to explore electrical conductors and the experiments of historical figures like Benjamin Franklin.

Throughout the lesson, students will engage in various activities, such as identifying circuit components and matching them with their symbols, building circuits to observe the effects of changing the number of cells on component functionality, and drawing circuit diagrams using recognised symbols. They will explore how voltage affects the brightness of bulbs and the loudness of buzzers, with an emphasis on safety when handling equipment like crocodile clips. The lesson also addresses common misconceptions, such as the difference between cells and batteries and the varying power of batteries. To conclude, a plenary session will assess students' understanding of how switches work, the concept of voltage, and the impact of cell numbers on circuit components. This comprehensive lesson plan is designed to foster scientific inquiry and understanding of electrical circuits in young learners.