The curriculum at Whipton Barton Primary is grounded in the strongest available evidence about how pupils learn and retain knowledge in the long term - focusing on research from cognitive science.

One of the learning strategies that is supported by considerable research is retrieval practice.

Retrieval practice refers to the act of recalling content that has previously been covered as it strengthens and deepens the knowledge that has been acquired within lessons.

It supports our learners with developing an elaborative understanding of the knowledge, where they can analyse content and make links between concepts. As our pupils progress through the academy, our aspiration is that the pupils become increasingly aware of the importance of self-quizzing and revisiting content that has been covered.

The selection of quizzes produced are designed to support with this and are intended to be used as a low-stakes learning strategy, which enables the learners to reflect on their areas of strength and identify the gaps in their knowledge where additional practice would be beneficial. Quizzing is regarded as a more effective form of revision than merely re-reading information and highlighting significant parts. 

HISTORY RETRIEVAL PRACTICE RESOURCES:

Year 3 - Ancient Greece
Year 3 - The Shang Dynasty
Year 4 - Anglo-Saxons
Year 4 - Vikings
Year 5 - Medieval Monarchs
Year 5 - The Middle East
Year 6 - Civil Rights
Year 6 - Twentieth Century Conflict

GEOGRAPHY RETRIEVAL PRACTICE RESOURCES:

Year 3 - Mountains, Earthquakes and Volcanoes
Year 4 - Migration
Year 5 - Earth’s Biomes
Year 6 - Population

Please encourage your child to access the wide range of retrieval practice activities to revise and extend their learning in History and Geography, either during the unit or thereafter. The activities can be completed fully or used to support a discussion. It is productive if there is a degree of 'struggle' experienced by your child when completing these activities. These are known as 'desirable difficulties', which means that an adequate balance of success and challenge results in improved long-term retention of the learned material.

It would be great to see some of the retrieval practice completed by sending it into us.