24 January 2025
Dear Year 11 parents/carers,
The resources we have shared to date are now also on our website here: Year 11 link to revision materials
This week, we wanted to share some more revision materials with you so that you have some practical resources and strategies to draw upon when encouraging your child(ren) to revise at home for their GCSEs.
What are Knowledge Organisers?
A Knowledge Organiser is a document that outlines the key knowledge and understanding needed for different parts of the curriculum in an organised, meaningful structure. They can be useful for revision as they provide a summary of useful information in one place. We are sharing some samples across a range of different subjects. Our samples are not exhaustive of each course but exemplify the type of resource that subject teachers are routinely sharing with students in the run up to the mock and final GCSE examinations.
How can I support my child(ren) to use these Knowledge Organisers effectively?
These Knowledge Organisers work best when students use them to carry out some active revision strategies, such as those outlined in the “Handy Revision Guide” we shared last week.
For example, you might suggest that you child:
Makes flash cards with the key terms, concepts or examples and learns these key terms. You could test them on these or they could pop some of the key terms around the house (on the fridge perhaps) so they bump into them routinely.
Mine them for examples in answer to an examination question. Students could use the Knowledge Organiser to find examples to support a statement or answer a question. This might be useful in English – which quotes would they use if they were going to answer a question about Jekyll? What about a question on Hyde?
Create mind maps or diagram to reorganise and process the information on the Knowledge Organiser. For example, they could make their own labelled diagram of the respiratory system from memory and then use the information on the Knowledge Organiser for biology to add in anything that they have missed or forgotten. If they add anything they have missed in a contrasting colour this would help them to focus their next revision session on the things they need to remember, rather than revising everything in one go.
Thank you for all you are doing to support your child(ren). We hope that this sample will be useful in providing a sample of the sort of materials we are sharing with Year 11.
Yours sincerely,
Kath Goudie, Vice Principal