Last week, a handful of staff spent three days in professional learning developing their understanding of the ‘Science of Learning’. Over the three days, the ‘Forgetting Curve’ was discussed multiple times.

What is the ‘Forgetting Curve’?

In the late 19th Century a German psychologist, Hermann Ebbinghaus studied how quickly we forget things. The result of his investigations was the 'Forgetting Curve'. What the forgetting curve shows us is that without spaced repetition of information, information really can move in 'one ear and out of the other' and surprisingly fast!

In the above graph, you can see that half of all information learned is forgotten within a day. The red curve also shows how quickly memories are lost and that just after 24 hours, we can only recall up to 70% and after a month this can dwindle to around 20% or less. 

However, the green curves show that if we undertake repetitive revision over the month, we can retain around 70% of the information originally learnt. Refreshing, reviewing and revising is the key to beating the forgetting curve and helping our students to be the best that they can be.

The reason I am discussing the forgetting curve in the Newsletter this week is because we are moving into the holidays. This could mean two whole weeks without any refreshing, reviewing and revising. I am not recommending that students participate in hours of work during the holidays. However, if there is the opportunity, I do recommend that students read over the holidays and even participate in some activities or games at home that support practice of concepts. There are lots of fabulous online activities and games that are connected to the curriculum that can be easily accessed (children would have accessed many of these during online learning). 

Some of the different online platforms you could access are:

• Wushka (Kindergarten - Year 2)
• Soundwaves
• iMaths
• Sora
• Storyline Online
• Study Ladder
• Scootle
• EdShed
• Typing Club
• K7Math
• Prodigy