Seasons (KS1)

KS1 Science

Seasonal changes is a Year 1 topic that runs all year, and it’s often a child’s first experience of collecting data over time. Here’s what the curriculum expects on the four seasons, weather and day length, and where to find lessons and resources to teach it.

What children learn about seasons at KS1

What the national curriculum expects

Seasonal changes is taught in Year 1. Pupils should observe changes across the four seasons, and observe and describe the weather associated with the seasons and how day length varies. It’s a strand designed to be revisited across the whole year rather than taught in a single block, since children need to see the changes happen.

Key knowledge and concepts

Within this topic, children build knowledge across how the year changes and how to record it:

What changes between spring, summer, autumn and winter

The weather we associate with each season

How daylight hours change across the year

Recording temperature, rainfall and wind over time

How weather is predicted, and the symbols used

How deciduous and evergreen trees respond differently

Migration, hibernation and other seasonal behaviours

Collecting and comparing data across the whole year

Where this topic sits within KS1

Seasonal changes is taught in Year 1, and by design it runs across the full academic year rather than sitting in one block. It builds naturally towards the Year 2 work on habitats and living things, and towards KS2 geography on weather and climate.

How to access this topic

Seasons don’t sit on their 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.

Find out more about the curriculum

Explore the Science Curriculum

Quick Teach Individual lessons and resources for supplementing what you already teach.