All students in Year 7 and 8 will be provided with Knowledge Organisers at the start of each term. We believe that knowledge organisers will have a positive impact on your child’s achievement and approach to revision, providing them with the best opportunity to be successful during assessments and examinations. Our expert teachers have created our own set of Knowledge Organisers which will be used both at home and during lesson time.
Knowledge Organisers
Educational research suggests that knowledge organisers have a significant impact on the progress made by all students, no matter what their academic ability. As a parent wishing to develop their child’s knowledge, it will also provide you with the opportunity to support your child at home, using a consistent approach that will be implemented across all subject areas for Key Stage 3.
What are Knowledge Organisers?
A knowledge organiser is a set of key facts or information that students need to know and be able to recall in order to master a unit or topic within each subject that they study. Typically, a knowledge organiser fits onto one page of A4, helping students to visualise the layout of the page, which in turn helps them to memorise the information more effectively. Retention of this knowledge will support your child as they progress from Key Stage 3 into Key Stage 4.
How it will work?
At the start of each term, students will receive a knowledge organiser booklet that contains content for all subject areas. They will use their knowledge organiser in your lessons, in tutor time, and during homework tasks. An important aspect of your revision for assessments and end-of-year examinations will be to use the knowledge organisers for self-quizzing.
If this core knowledge is secured, they will be in a strong position to use and apply this knowledge in a range of contexts. Students will be given your knowledge organiser in a plastic wallet along with a homework booklet – the expectation is that you bring this to school every day – it should be placed on your desk in every lesson, ready to use. Geography and History highlight the essential ‘golden knowledge’ in yellow to support your learning.
Students should complete at least one hour of Home Learning per school day. This will consist of:
- Knowledge Organiser and Online Learning as directed by their teachers.
- If they have no tasks set, carry out Knowledge Organiser activities as per the timetable shown in their Knowledge Organiser.
- Two periods of 20 minute reading each week.
How will I access the Knowledge Organiser?
There are two ways in which parents and students can access their knowledge organisers. Firstly, each student will be given a knowledge organiser folder. These will be added to every half term by all subjects. Additionally, all knowledge organisers along with support material will be placed on our website, ensuring that parents and students can always access the resources.
How will they be used for home learning?
Every student will be given an A4 exercise book in which they should complete the revision for all of their subjects. A third of a page for each subject should be completed and students can revise using the suggested techniques that they have been shown in class and by using the Core Four revision techniques at the back of the Knowledge Organiser. Knowledge organisers and workbooks will be used in lessons each day so it is vital that students bring them as part of their required equipment for school.
How to revise
The best way to use revise using Knowledge Organisers is to regularly use one of our Core 4 Revision strategies as part of students home learning. These strategies will be explained to students in more detail in tutor time, by their class teachers and as part of their Personal Development lessons.
Flash Cards
Use the information from your knowledge organiser to create flashcards – these could be double sided, with a question on one side and the answer on another, or a keyword on one side and the definition on the other.
Self Quizzing
There are different ways you can self-quiz:
- Look, cover, write, (say), check
- Create gaps fills
- Create questions for the information you want to learn and then answer them from memory
Brain dumps
These are a small but powerful revision strategy which help makes the information ‘sticky’ so that it goes into your long-term memory, ready for you to recall it into your working memory. They are good to use at the end of topics. An effective brain dump involves you writing down everything you can about a topic you want to revise from your memory. You then check the information against the information on your Knowledge Organiser – you then mark your work and add any missing information onto your brain dump in a different colour pen, so that you know which information you need to revisit, either through using flash cards or self-quizzing.
Revision Clocks
Revision Clocks are a blank clock shape – divided into 12 segments. In each segment put a sub-heading and then include the information linked to that. They are effective as they allow you to ‘chunk’ up the core knowledge from the topic into the segments. You can use colours and pictures to make the information more ‘sticky’.
How can parents support this process?
- Print off and display their home learning timetable
- Encourage and reward them for completing one hour of revision each night
- Test them along the way and ask them questions (all answers will be included in the knowledge organisers)
- Make sure they bring their workbook and folder to school each day
- Encourage your child to attempt different techniques for revising
