The research behind Recall
Better learning starts with understanding how we remember.
Learning something once doesn’t always mean we’ll remember it later.
Even when pupils understand something in a lesson, that knowledge can become harder to recall over time. Giving them opportunities to retrieve and revisit what they’ve learned can help strengthen retention.
That’s part of the thinking behind Recall. We’re combining practical assessment tools with established research into learning and memory to help schools understand what pupils know, identify what needs attention and support learning over time.
Remembering is part of learning.
Retrieval practice is the act of bringing previously learned information back to mind.
Rather than simply reading something again, pupils try to remember it. This might happen through a short quiz, a question at the start of a lesson or an opportunity to explain something they’ve learned.
Research with primary-aged children has found that retrieval practice can improve later recall of factual information.
The important idea is simple: remembering something isn’t just a way of checking learning. It can also help strengthen it.
A little practice, spread over time.
Learning doesn’t always stick after one lesson or one successful answer.
Research suggests that revisiting knowledge at different points over time can support longer-term retention.
That’s the thinking behind spaced retrieval practice.
Rather than giving every pupil the same revision activity at the same time, we want to explore how Recall can help schools provide more focused opportunities to revisit learning.
From research to the classroom.
Good research only matters if it can be put to practical use.
Recall begins by helping Year 6 teachers mark SATs practice papers, identify gaps and plan what to teach next.
Our next stage is to connect those insights with short, personalised retrieval quizzes.
The aim is to give pupils opportunities to practise knowledge they need to strengthen, revisit it over time and build on what they’ve learned.
The research helps inform how we’re designing that experience. We’ll continue to develop and evaluate how well Recall works in real classrooms.
The research we’re drawing on
Our approach is informed by published research into retrieval practice, spaced learning and personalised review scheduling.
Explore the original studies below to find out more about the evidence and ideas shaping Recall.
Retrieval practice in primary school children
Retrieval Practice, with or without Mind Mapping, Boosts Fact Learning in Primary School Children.
Research involving primary-aged pupils found that retrieval practice supported later recall of factual information.
Read the original publication (opens in a new tab)Spaced retrieval practice
A Meta-Analytic Review of the Benefit of Spacing out Retrieval Practice Episodes on Retention.
A review of 29 studies examining how spacing retrieval practice affects retention. The findings support spaced retrieval while highlighting that no single scheduling pattern is optimal in every situation.
Read the original publication (opens in a new tab)Personalised review scheduling
A Trainable Spaced Repetition Model for Language Learning.
Introduces a model that estimates how knowledge may be forgotten over time and uses those estimates to inform future review scheduling.
This work informs our thinking about personalisation, rather than providing direct evidence about Recall or UK primary classrooms.
Read the original publication (opens in a new tab)Learning and forgetting at skill level
DAS3H: Modeling Student Learning and Forgetting for Optimally Scheduling Distributed Practice of Skills.
Explores modelling learning and forgetting across individual skills.
This is relevant to our longer-term ambition to tailor retrieval practice to specific areas of curriculum knowledge.
Read the original publication (opens in a new tab)
Research informs our design decisions. It should not be taken as evidence that Recall itself has already been demonstrated to improve pupil attainment.