A knowledge organiser is a set of important information and key facts that are required for pupils to be successful within a subject. We call this Core Knowledge. For our pupils to be successful, we must equip them with the skills required to learn, retain and retrieve important information.
At the Ellis Guilford School, our teachers carefully create personalised knowledge organisers that support our curriculum delivery and contain all the core knowledge required for a topic. This is contained within an A4 page.
All pupil in all year groups, are issued with their own knowledge organiser. They are also issued with a plastic wallet to protect the organiser. There are two knowledge organisers issued every academic year; one from September to February, and one from February to July.
Knowledge organisers are referred to in all lessons. Therefore, all pupils are expected to bring them to school every day and to have them on their desks at the beginning of every lesson.
Knowledge organisers support all learners with identifying and using core knowledge and therefore pupils will be reminded to use them at many points within a lesson.
Teachers check the understanding of pupils at various points within a lesson. This may be through a low-stakes quiz, e.g. our entry tickets, or through asking pupils questions. Our teachers here at the Ellis Guilford School are involved in regular subject specific planning sessions where they use their subject expertise to plan the misconceptions that are likely to arise from pupils, and they ‘tweak’ their teaching to cater for these.
Knowledge organisers support with knowledge retrieval, the process of learning new knowledge, and subsequently knowledge retention, the ability for pupils to remember more.
Pupils are also expected to use their knowledge organiser when completing homework; it provides pupils with the information and knowledge required to access work set by their teacher and to complete it successfully.
The knowledge organiser contains various strategies that pupils may use to independently learn the information contained within it.
You can support your child by:
There is a large amount of information within all knowledge organisers, and therefore they would only be expected to learn a small amount at a time.