Knowing More and Remembering More at Gisburn Primary School

At Gisburn Primary School, our curriculum is systemically structured to enable our children to know more and remember more.

Concepts in each area of the curriculum are sequenced in small steps to avoid cognitive overload and to ensure children deepen their knowledge and are able to apply this knowledge in accurate and meaningful ways.

Research shows that the following strategies support our children to know more and remember more. Therefore, we ensure that these strategies are embedded within our practice:

Schema

At Gisburn Primary School we recognise that learning is complicated so it can be useful to use conceptual models to help understand and discuss it. A powerful concept is the idea that we organise ideas, knowledge, the things we learn, in patterns of connected information called schema.

Schema-building is at the heart of this diagram by Oliver Caviglioli.

Remembering is a label for a wide set of processes that involve drawing on our memory of things we know or have experienced;  it doesn’t only mean the simple act of conscious factual retrieval. 

This is why when creating our curriculum, we choose knowledge carefully and sequenced it, so that the knowledge the children modify their schema with each piece of knowledge and topic that is learnt. We are also aware that information and ideas arrive and form in complex ways and we should assess our children in a variety of ways.  

Retrieval

We understand that retrieval practice improves pupils' memory and recall. In turn, it can also improve children's application skills and their ability to transfer their knowledge to new concepts and new situations.

In all curriculum units, the learning process begins with teachers checking pupils’ understanding of prior learning. These connected knowledge checks help to ensure that children are building on secure prior knowledge and are able to make connections between existing knowledge and new knowledge.

Examples of assessing prior learning include: Mind mapping, through discussions, pre-unit quizzes etc.

To embed new knowledge into the long term memory, children at Gisburn Primary School have regular, planned opportunities to actively practise their new knowledge. Therefore, each lesson begins with retrieval practise tasks and a variety of activities are used in our classrooms to enable children to recall their knowledge in different ways.

Examples of retrieval exercises used in our EYFS and Key Stage One classrooms are: quick fire questioning, flashcards, multiple choice questions and picture quizzes.

Whereas in our Key Stage Two classrooms, retrieval tasks may take the form of practising explanations, low-stakes written quizzes and mind mapping.

In addition, Knowledge Checks are used throughout the school as our spaced and interleaved retrieval practice. A focus on vocabulary understanding/retrieval will be included in each retrieval task.

For curriculum subjects, Knowledge Checks are also carried out after a unit has been taught. From Y1-Y6, this will mainly take the form of a low-stakes written quiz.

Spaced Learning, Interleaving, Dual Coding, Elaboration and Concrete examples

In addition to this, opportunities for Spaced Learning, Interleaving, Dual Coding, Elaboration and Concrete examples will be provided by teachers to review repeated application of knowledge allows teachers to assess the essential knowledge which has been taught and check for understanding.

Any forgotten knowledge or gaps in knowledge are identified and whole class or small group intervention / recaps are implemented until the knowledge is secure.

Summative Assessment:

• We have three summative assessment points each academic year (December, March and May/June) for assessing reading, writing, maths and SPAG.
• We use NTS tests for reading, GAPS tests for grammar and spelling and for maths we use White Rose summative tests/NTS Tests.
• Teacher assessments of Writing are moderated both internally and externally.

Stretch and Challenge

It is crucial that our most able students fulfil their potential. We need to harness the talents of these students so that they can become successful individuals in the future. We know that able children do best in classrooms where the work is intellectually challenging. Such work will involve the child exercising both cognitive and metacognitive skills. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development research inspires our stretch and challenge opportunities; we aim to support and challenge our more able pupils to ensure that they are continuously learning.