What children learn about light at KS2
What the national curriculum expects
Light is taught in Year 3 and Year 6. Year 3 covers recognising that we need light to see and that dark is the absence of light, noticing that light is reflected from surfaces, recognising that sunlight can be dangerous and how to protect eyes, recognising that shadows form when light is blocked by an opaque object, and finding patterns in how shadow size changes. Year 6 covers recognising that light appears to travel in straight lines, using that idea to explain why we see objects and why shadows have the same shape as the objects casting them.
Key knowledge and concepts
Within this topic, children build knowledge across what light does and how we see:
Light and dark
Why we need light to see, and what darkness actually is
How light travels
The idea that light moves in straight lines
Light, sight and the eye
How light reaches the eye, and why that lets us see
Reflection
How light bounces off surfaces, including mirrors
Shadows
How shadows form, and why they take the shapes they do
Investigating shadow size
Finding patterns in how shadows change
Sunlight and eye safety
Why sunlight can be dangerous, and how to protect eyes
Refraction and visible light
How light bends, and the colours within it
Where this topic sits within KS2
Light is taught in Year 3 and again in Year 6. Year 3 focuses on observing what light does, and Year 6 on explaining it using the idea that light travels in straight lines.
How to access this topic
Light doesn’t sit on its own in the curriculum. The Cornerstones science curriculum is fully sequenced from EYFS through Year 1 to Year 6, so you can see what comes before, what follows and how the whole picture fits together. We’ve done the thinking, so your planning time goes into teaching, not sequencing.
Full curriculum
Subject curriculum
Quick Teach Individual lessons and resources for supplementing what you already teach.
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See how the full Cornerstones Science Curriculum sequences topics like this one across every year group.