Make Knowledge Stick: Odd One Out

Recently I have been working really hard to ensure that my GCSE students can recall information over longer periods of time. This is something that I admit, I never really used to think about. I would just teach in an enquiry based way and leave enough time to do the revision at the end of the course.

However, what with an increasing emphasis on historical knowledge across the curriculum I realise that I need to do more to  ensure that knowledge can stick over long periods of time.

Don’t get me wrong, results have always been good, but with recent curriculum changes, I need to make sure that the students I teach are armed and dangerous, ready to  deploy their decent historical knowledge.

Luckily, I work with Neil Bates, and he has a back catalogue of ideas bigger than The Rolling Stones.  It is little surprise to me that Neil’s GCSE results have improved over the last few years when exams have got tougher and whole school results have gone backwards.

Some people think regular  knowledge tests are the way to go to improve recall. I kind of agree with this approach, but it can be stressful and monotonous for kids. So instead we try to vary our approach.

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