This is the 2026 Annual Teaching Plan for Grade 7 Natural Sciences. The year covers the four strands Life and Living, Matter and Materials, Energy and Change, and Planet Earth and Beyond, with science process skills such as observing, measuring, predicting and doing investigations.
The plan lists each CAPS topic with its duration in weeks, core concepts, resources and informal assessment, and ends each strand with one week of remediation, revision and consolidation. A separate section explains the science process skills and the steps of the scientific process.
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What the Natural Sciences Grade 7 ATP covers
Term 1
- The biosphere and life processes
- Requirements for sustaining life
- Classification of living things
- Vertebrates and invertebrates
- Plant diversity
- Sexual reproduction in flowering plants
- Human reproduction and puberty
- Variation within a species
Formal assessment: Practical task or investigation, and a test.
Term 2
- Introduction to the Periodic Table
- Metals, semi-metals and non-metals
- Physical properties of materials
- Separating mixtures
- Sorting and recycling waste materials
- Acids, bases and neutrals
- Testing with litmus paper
Formal assessment: Practical task or investigation, and a test.
Term 3
- Renewable and non-renewable energy sources
- Potential and kinetic energy
- Law of conservation of energy
- Heat transfer: conduction, convection, radiation
- Insulation and energy saving
- Energy transfer to the surroundings
Formal assessment: Project, and a test.
Term 4
- Solar energy and the Earth's seasons
- Tilt of the Earth's axis
- Solar energy and life on Earth
- How fossil fuels store solar energy
- The Moon's orbit and gravity
- Tides and spring tides
Formal assessment: Practical task or investigation, and a test.
Source: Department of Basic Education, 2023/24 Annual Teaching Plans. DBE Circular S19 of 2025 keeps the 2023/24 ATPs in use, with some exclusions, so check with your school or district for any changes.