What are Knowledge Organisers?

In short, a Knowledge Organiser is a quick reference memory aid for pupils, referred to during lessons, and helpful ‘checklists’ for parents.

A Knowledge Organiser is a set of key facts or information that pupils need to know and be able to recall in order to master a unit or topic. Typically, an organiser fits onto one page of A4 or A3 – this helps pupils to visualise the layout of the page, which in turn helps them to memorise the information better.

Why Knowledge Organisers?

Because we believe that knowledge is power. To quote Dr Seuss,

'The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go'. 

The main benefit of knowledge organisers is that they give children and teachers the ‘bigger picture’ of a topic or subject area. Some topics can be complicated, so having the essential knowledge, clear diagrams, explanations and key terms on one document can be really helpful.

Research shows that our brains remember things more efficiently when we know the ‘bigger picture’ and can see the way that nuggets of knowledge within that subject area link, forming pictoral representation of the key facts. Making links, essentially, helps information move into our long-term memory. And, as Ofsted’s Sean Harford recently remarked, knowledge becomes ‘sticky’ – the more you know, the more you learn – which helps children gain deeper understanding over time.

The secret to success is to regularly revisit the knowledge to be learned (known as ‘spaced retrieval’). This helps transfer the knowledge from the short-term memory to the long term memory. This not only helps to make ‘learning stick’ but it also frees up our short-term memory for day to day learning and experiences.

Please note these are working documents as we continue to develop our curriculum to support the community we serve.