Knowledge Organisers
Knowledge Organisers - Junior department
What is a Knowledge Organiser?
A knowledge organiser contains all the important information from a particular topic, summarised in just a few pages. It includes keywords, important facts, diagrams, methods and skills relating to the topic. Currently we have Knowledge Organisers for : History and Geography (one subject is taught each half term), Science, Computing , French, Music and PSHE (PSHE must be requested from the class teacher due to copyright).
Why is it useful?
A Knowledge Organiser helps students to organise the content they need to learn. This makes it easier for them to remember the information and access the facts from their memory when they need to answer an exam question.
How can it be used?
The more memories are used, the stronger the memory becomes and the easier it is to access. For students, this means regular practice at retrieving the facts they have learnt and using them in a variety of ways. They could play games with the information, explain the facts to someone, apply the information to a new situation or organise the knowledge organiser into a different format.
How can I help?
The Knowledge Organiser contains all the facts needed to test someone on the content from a topic. This is great because it means you can help someone revise content even if you haven’t studied it yourself!
You could ask your child some questions on the content, for example the definition of a few key words, or challenge them to draw a diagram from memory. Testing their knowledge with one or two questions a day can make a big difference to how much information they remember. Perhaps it could become part of the after dinner or breakfast routine.
You could prompt your child to turn some of the information on the Knowledge Organiser into a different format. A word list could become flashcards. Facts could be transformed into a mind map to show links between ideas. Information could become a song, story or comic strip. A diagram could become a poster, a collage or a model.
You could ask your child to teach you about something on the Knowledge Organiser. Having to explain information to someone else, and answer their questions about it, is a great way to reinforce their knowledge and identify areas they need to go back to and revise again.
You could suggest turning the information into a multiple-choice quiz, either on paper or using a website. This task requires them to process the information to write questions and come up with correct and incorrect answers. You could then use it to test their knowledge or to host a quiz with family or friends, either at home or online
Please contact your class teacher if you have any questions about Knowledge Organisers.
Knowledge Organisers: Autumn Term 2023
Knowledge Organisers: Spring Term 2024
Knowledge Organisers : Summer 2024