Archive: Knowledge Organisers by Term

For each year group, the content for every subject has been broken down into a Knowledge Organiser. All the Knowledge Organisers have been collated into a printed booklet which is given to students. These booklets support the students with their revision homework, alongside regular skill-focused prep-work.  Click the relevant link below:

Students in Years 7, 8 and 9 have been taught in an assembly how to use the read, cover, write, check revision strategy and question and answer flashcards to test themselves. This encourages students to take ownership of their learning, and to support them in developing good learning habits. Embedding this content is critical for long-term success and effective retrieval from long-term memory. It will prepare them really well for their studies in Years 10-11 and our Sixth Form.

Self Quizzing Strategies

We recommend:

Read, cover, write, check students learn key information in their Knowledge Organisers by reading a small section, covering it up, saying the definitions to themselves, writing out those key terms and definitions in their self-quizzing books, then checking to see if they got them right. They should correct any errors in green pen, then repeat the process.  Watch this being done in the following video link here. 

The Leitner System: students create question and answer flashcards with a question on one side, and an answer on the other (or key terminology on one side, and definitions on the other).  They test themselves several times a week, and revise each card depending on whether they got it right last time or not.   

Effective revision should make you think

 Support your child by encouraging them to:

• Create an organised revision timetable
• Space topics and subjects out over time
• Read, cover, write, check
• Create Q&A flashcards
• Use the Leitner system to space revision
• Do lots of practice testing e.g. on Hegarty Maths or with practice papers

Assessment

Progress of students in Years 7-10 is assessed summatively three times per year through standardised tests that cover the whole domain of knowledge (rather than the recently-taught sample) from the autumn term in Year 7 onwards. This is supported by regular interim formative assessment feedback and regular low-stakes quizzing, and in practical subjects, by on-going assessment of practical work. This regularity encourages students to develop strong revision habits, and ensures they have revisited key content even after moving on to another topic.

In Year 11, students are assessed five times throughout the year, and at KS5, the summative assessment occurs during our CEAT weeks.

How to support your child with effective revision

Research around memory suggests that if knowledge is studied once and not revisited or revised, it is not stored in the long-term memory.  This means that after one lesson, or revising for one test, the knowledge will not be retained unless it is studied again.  It won’t be recalled unless it is revisited frequently, which will embed it in the long-term memory.  This will make it easier to recall in the future.

Students should be revising what they have been taught recently, but also content that they were taught previously such as last term, or last year, for example.

To support this revision, students should be testing themselves on the content in their Knowledge Organisers by self-quizzing.