What are knowledge organisers?

​A knowledge organiser is a document that contains key facts and information that children need to have good knowledge and understanding of a topic.

Most knowledge organisers will include:

• the essential facts about the topic, usually laid out in easily digestible chunks
• key vocabulary or technical terms and their meanings
• images such as maps or diagrams
• links to our class texts
• famous quotations, if relevant

Why do we use knowledge organisers?

• ​to give children and teachers the ‘bigger picture’ of a topic or subject area
• pre-learning
• access to spelling and definitions of key vocabulary
• use for retrieval practice - regular retrieval of knowledge helps us remember more effectively
• they make the knowledge explicit. So, even if a child misses a lesson, they have a point of reference.

How can we use knowledge organisers at home to support learning?

• ask children to match definitions to key vocabulary
• practise spelling the key vocabulary using look, say, cover, write, check
• look through the knowledge organiser at the start of a new topic and ask your child if they have any questions – these can then be researched together at home
• create mini quizzes based on different sections of the knowledge organiser
• carry out additional research about key people or events within the knowledge organiser

Please see our knowledge organisers for each year on the webpages for our individual curriculum subjects.