Spaced Review

The steps

1. Choose one regular slot for review. The simplest place is a slot already built into the lesson, such as the starter quiz or Do Now (a short written task waiting when students arrive). Five questions in the first five minutes is a practical starting point.
2. Spread the questions across time. As a guide, use two from the previous lesson, two from the previous week and one from further back. Adjust the balance as needed, provided some questions always reach back several weeks or months.
3. Keep a list of what is waiting. Record each topic you teach and the date it last appeared in a quiz. When planning, choose the further-back question from the topic that has gone longest without review. A page in your planner or a single spreadsheet column is enough.
4. Explain the old questions to the class.
   You'll keep seeing questions from weeks ago. That's deliberate. Returning to something just as you begin to forget it helps make it stick.
   Explain this when you introduce the routine, and repeat it when students question why older material keeps returning.
5. Go over the answers and note what has faded. Mark the quiz together in two or three minutes. If most students answer an older question incorrectly, give a brief recap and return to that topic within the week.
6. Schedule each topic's return as you finish it. Add return dates to your planner: after roughly a week, a month and a term. Increasing the gaps reflects how memory works, but use the dates as a guide and adjust them when needed.

How you’ll know it’s working

• Two weeks of your starter slides, viewed together, include questions that reach at least a month into the past.
• Students attempt the older questions. Blank answers and complaints become less common during the first half-term, and a question from September feels routine.
• Scores improve when topics return. A question answered correctly by half the class on its first return is answered correctly by most of the class on its second.
• No topic on the last-seen list has gone without review for longer than about half a term.

Weigh it up

Why it’s worth it

• It uses existing lesson time to support long-term retention. The starter happens anyway; using it for older material puts one of the most consistently replicated findings in learning research into practice without adding more lesson time.
• It addresses the problem of each new topic displacing the previous one. Earlier units remain accessible, so lessons that build on them can begin with prior knowledge rather than reteaching.
• It provides assessment information months in advance. A return question that goes badly in November reveals a gap you can address early; finding the same gap in May creates much more pressure.
• It shows students what effective revision feels like. They find the questions easier with each return, making a practical case for spacing out their own study.
• The routine can also create calmer starts. A predictable opening quiz settles students in much the same way as a well-run Do Now, so it supports both memory and lesson entry.

The costs

• The administration is modest but ongoing. Maintaining the last-seen list and preparing mixed quizzes takes some planning time every week for as long as you use the routine.
• Review takes time away from new content. Spending five minutes of each lesson on older material slows coverage slightly, which may feel difficult on a crowded course.
• The first results can feel discouraging. Initial return questions reveal how much the class has forgotten, and it can be easy to interpret normal forgetting as a sign of failed teaching.