Markington CE Primary and Nursery School

A knowledge organiser is a set of key facts or information that pupils need to know and be able to recall in order to master a unit or topic. Typically an organiser fits onto one page of A4 or A3 – this helps pupils to visualize the layout of the page which in turn helps them to memorise the information better.

Our working memory capacity is limited, so by storing more in our long-term memory, we can free up working memory capacity (Paas et al., 2004).  For example, when we first learn to drive, we have to remember to depress the clutch before changing gear and look in the mirror before manoeuvering, but... before long, these skills become 'automatic' because they have been stored in our long-term memory.  Similarly, when children are asked to write a report about the Romans, we can reduce the extraneous cognitive load by enabling pupils to access knowledge and quotations from their long-term, rather than their short-term, memory.