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Ross Morrison McGill founded @TeacherToolkit in 2007, and today, he is one of the ‘most followed educators’on social media in the world. In 2015, he was nominated as one of the ‘500 Most Influential People in Britain’ by The Sunday Times as a result of…
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Are you planning for forgetting—or just hoping students will remember?
It seems a contradictory message to promote to teachers, that we should be planning across our curriculum where students ‘forget’ information. This post argues that forgetting is not a failure of learning—it’s part of it. And unless we plan for it, we undermine our own teaching.
Teachers spend hours planning what to teach, but far less time planning when and how to revisit it.
Without planned retrieval, learning is lost—not because students are failing, but because forgetting information is normal, and very much part of the learning process. Retrieving content helps build storage.
The key question, therefore, is how do teachers design their curriculum to make memory stick, and where are there opportunities to forget?
Cognitive science shows that memory decays unless it’s retrieved and rehearsed. Yet many schemes of work are packed with new content and leave no space for revisiting. Teachers feel under pressure to teach the full curriculum and move on—before the learning has even stuck.
In short: we must plan for forgetting as deliberately as we plan for delivery. This means, delays must be built into the teaching process (see spaced practice).
Forgetting isn’t failure; it’s a feature of how the brain works. If we don’t plan for it, we risk losing learning entirely.
A growing audience of teachers are becoming familiar with cognitive science; they know that spaced and interleaving practice are research-backed techniques that aid the schematic sequence.
Walking through a woodland without a path is challenging. We have to push through the vegetation. But if we continue to use the same path over and over, a track gradually forms, and it becomes easier to follow the trail. However, ‘if we stop using the trail, the vegetation grows back, and the trail slowly disappears.
Most teachers know that students forget content. But fewer understand that the brain is designed to forget—unless prompted otherwise. Without revisiting, reconnection and rethinking, knowledge simply fades.
It’s not a flaw in students; it’s a flaw in our planning.
Planning for Forgetting
Teacher professional development often stops at “What is retrieval practice?” without answering: when, how often, and why? If schools don’t train teachers to plan for forgetting, they’re only preparing them to teach—not to ensure long-term learning.
Instead, teachers should embed “planned forgetting” by designing curriculum space for retrieval. Curriculum design should not only scaffold new knowledge, but build space to revisit and reteach. This, of course, is a fine balance between curriculum time available and how memory is made.
- Spaced practice – Rather than revising everything at the end of term, build in regular reviews.
- Cumulative quizzing – Don’t just test this week’s topic. Spiral in questions from last month, last term, last year.
- Lagged homework – Assign tasks that revisit old topics, not just reinforce the current one.
- Retrieval slots – Add 5-minute “memory workouts” in every lesson.
- Mark schemes for memory – Include past content in assessments. Make it count.
Use the “encoding, storage, retrieval” framework to align planning with how memory works. Teach students the science too—it builds metacognition and motivation.
- Do teachers in your school know the forgetting curve?
- Where in the curriculum do students retrieve prior learning?
- How far back do your assessments spiral content?
- Is spaced practice built into your scheme of work?
- Are staff confident planning retrieval beyond quizzing?
- When was CPD last focused on memory science?
- How are misconceptions identified and retaught?
- What strategies are used to retrieve for SEND students?
- How is long-term retention measured across the school?
- Do students know why forgetting happens?
Like a spider’s web, long-term learning requires anchor points, structured connections and space for repair. Retrieval is the thread that ties ‘forgetting’ all together.
The goal isn’t to add more content—it’s to teach smarter by giving the brain what it needs: time to forget, then retrieve.
