Knowledge Organisers

Learning Matters #17 Knowledge Organisers 

Knowledge organisers or topic sheets, are a summary of the key facts and essential knowledge that you need about a unit of work, topic or a curriculum subject They allow you to make links between themes and condense content into bitesize chunks.  

Some students find that having all the knowledge you need on one page, allows them to feel in control of what you need to know. You can pick it up, read it, test yourself and identify the specific areas that you feel confident in and those you need to work on.  

Blending words with pictures can also help make this knowledge more memorable, and give you hooks to recall the knowledge in an exam or assessment. 

Key things that are typically included are –  

• Vocabulary 
• Powerful concepts 
• Key places or people 
• Key case studies or theories
• Key dates  

The secret to success is to regularly revisit the knowledge you need to learn. This helps transfer the knowledge from your short-term to your 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 experience.  

Learning Matters. It’s why we are here. Talk to you teacher, tutor or any member of staff about how you learn best.