Knowledge, Skills & Understanding

Across the International Primary Curriculum, Knowledge, Skills and Understanding are all considered valuable and important.    Knowledge At CHIS, we think of ‘Knowledge’ as Knowing. Knowledge can be learning new information or building upon something we already know. Knowledge is continually expanding and can change as new discoveries are made.   How do we help our students remember the knowledge that matters? 

• Continually repeat it as we believe things remain in the memory when children hear them often.
• Provide hooks that help students retrieve information.

    Skills We think of ‘Skills’ as being able to do something. Skills are learnt in a practical way. They can be new or developed by practice over time. Unlike knowledge, skills learning goes through a process of beginning, developing, mastering and innovating.  How do we develop skills at CHIS?

• Create lots of time for extended practice that allows real development to take place.
• Coach rather than tell. When skills are being learned, teachers are alongside students helping them improve.
• Provide huge amounts of personal support through the process for students to progress positively.
• Set SMART targets with students, targets that are about getting better at each stage rather than about completion.

Our teachers assess skills learning through continual observations.       
Understanding
Understanding in the IPC is different from knowledge or skills. For us, it means looking at a bigger  picture - ‘I am finally beginning to understand why pirates use a map to navigate their way to search for treasures’, ‘I am understanding more of what it is to be an artist’. Understanding is much deeper, more personal and it changes with different circumstances. We often use the word understand when we actually mean ‘know’ or ‘able to’. But understanding depends on the depth of students’ learning experience and their personal responses.     How do we help deepen our students’ understanding?

• Provide rich and varied learning experiences.
• Provide a chance for students to develop the ability to reflect through reflection questions that support understanding.
• Value the individual responses of students and support their growing big thoughts.
• Collect evidence over time that shows how the children’s learning has developed.

    Why are these three types of learning important? As we define, ‘Learning at CHIS is a process where we make connections as we acquire knowledge, develop skills and deepen our understanding in our subject, personal and international learning’. We appreciate different types of teaching and know that different ways of learning help our students to experience ‘Joy of Learning’.