The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a child focussed topic vocabulary mat in science and humanities to enhance pupil articulation. It was designed to examine how the topic mats would enhance the children’s ability to remember more and make links with prior learning. If nothing has been altered in longterm memory, nothing has been learned.” (Kirschner, Sweller and Clarke, 2006). In Ofsted’s 2019 review, the importance of knowing more and remembering more was identified as a core component of evaluation and is now an integral part of their new framework. A topic vocabulary mat, often referred to as a knowledge organiser, sets out the important, useful, and powerful knowledge on a topic on a single page, (Kirby, 2015). The children selected for the research study were in the KS1 phase at Hoxton Garden, in Year 1 and 2. Each year group was
provided with a topic mat for their science and humanities topic in spring 1 and spring 2, (Appendix 1 and 2).
The mat was split into three sections; key vocabulary, what I’ve already learnt and key knowledge. In the study,
children were interviewed as part of pupil voice at 3 different stages across the research process; at the start
and end of spring 1, and the end of spring 2. The effectiveness of the mats was measured against the children’s
responses to questions and their ability to make links with prior learning. Teacher feedback was also considered
to assess the effectiveness of pupil responses in each science and humanities lesson.