When I found out that a fantastic teacher - who had taught science at my school since 1978 - was retiring, I knew I couldn’t let her leave without first finding out the secret of her success. Pam McCulloch’s students achieved incredible exam results, year in, year out. I had to know how she did it. It turned out that her methods were quite simple.

“If [students] are going to learn new knowledge, they need to keep repeating it,” Pam explained to me. “So I would start every lesson with 20 questions. They were short and to the point, and went back over knowledge from previous lessons - not just the latest one. This gets the content embedded. It’s not fun and showy, but it works.

“I would also do the same with homework: not just set them work based on that lesson but sometimes on what they did a few weeks ago. If we don’t do this, it just drifts away.”

Although Pam might not have realised it at the time, what she was intuitively implementing was a key strategy from cognitive science: retrieval practice. Put simply, this is the act of having to retrieve something from your memory. There is a large body of research evidence that strongly suggests the act of bringing information to mind is critical for robust, durable and long-term learning.

For instance, a 2008 study by Karpicke et al (“The critical importance of retrieval for learning” ) found that “repeated retrieval practice enhanced long-term retention, whereas repeated studying produced essentially no benefit. Although educators and psychologists often consider testing a neutral process that merely assesses the contents of memory, practising retrieval during tests produces more learning than additional encoding or study once an item has been recalled.”

Similarly, in the 2013 paper “Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques”, Dunlosky et al assessed the “utility” of 10 learning techniques (their impact and how widely they could be used). The researchers found that regular low-stakes testing (having to retrieve something from memory) had a strong effect across all ages and curriculum areas.

When you consider the evidence, it is no surprise that Pam’s students did so well in science. She continually demanded that they retrieve things from their memory and, as a result, the learning stuck.

At the end of last year, when my school was looking at how to help students to cope with the increased demands of the new GCSE specifications, I immediately thought of Pam. We were grappling with the problem of how to train our students to recall a vast body of knowledge, and I was becoming increasingly concerned that too many pupils were overly reliant on “low-utility” revision techniques, such as re-reading and highlighting. Retrieval practice seemed to be the answer.

So how have we put the research into practice? We selected three main strategies for teachers of all GCSE subjects to apply in their classrooms as a sustainable way of incorporating retrieval practice into their day-to-day teaching.

1. Memory platforms

Now, at the start of a lesson, teachers will often ask questions to recap learning from the previous lesson. We are developing this by encouraging teachers to pose questions in three groups: questions from last week; questions from last month; and questions from last term. This ensures that students are encouraged to retrieve content from a while ago, with just the right amount having been forgotten to strengthen the memory. Psychologist Robert Bjork describes this as an example of a “desirable difficulty” - a learning task that requires a considerable, but desirable, amount of effort, thereby improving long-term performance.

Quizzing like this becomes even more effective when it is low-stakes (scores are not collected); this reinforces the notion that having to retrieve the answer is the most important part of the process.

2. Structured note-taking

Students often take notes in lessons, which they will simply re-read when it is time to revise. While this may give them a sense of accomplishment, the reality is that the process will have been of very little use.

Instead, this year, teachers are coaching students in “structured note-taking” using the Cornell method. This involves students leaving a space beside their notes, which is then populated with cues to be picked up on later when they come to revise the topic. These cues could be keywords - for which the student will need to retrieve the definition - or questions on core knowledge.

Structured note-taking helps to convert a record of key ideas into a permanent part of students’ knowledge (Pauk and Owens, How to Study in College, 2010).

3. Flashcards

This is a piece of card with a question or keyword on one side and the answer or definition on the other. Students test themselves by attempting to retrieve the answer from memory, before turning the card over. Our teachers are promoting the use of flashcards, but also sharing valuable insights from research about how to use them effectively. Namely:

•  Although it is tempting to remove “correct” cards if a student gets the right answer, they should be kept in the pack to support overlearning (ie, learning something past the point of proficiency).

•  Pupils should write out the answer before checking their response.

•  Rather than just checking and moving on, students should be encouraged to supplement their answer with an example.

Teachers have been applying these three strategies faithfully with GCSE classes since September. But how do we know that it’s working? Well, ultimately, we’ll only be able to answer this question at the end of the year, when students sit their exams, remember the knowledge from the course and hopefully achieve great grades as a result. What we can say, though, is that the three indicators of effective implementation - fidelity, reach and acceptability - seem to be evident:

Fidelity: because of the simplicity of the strategies, we have already seen them being implemented well across a range of lessons in the way we intended.

Reach: a number of teachers have already shown me some great examples of student work using these strategies. For example, the geography team are now using Cornell note-taking in most lessons. So we know the strategies are reaching the people they need to - the students.

Acceptability: because of their simplicity, the strategies have been embraced by teachers, who are keen to use them in a way that suits their subject. They have very much been accepted.

Shaun Allison is head of school improvement and director of the research school at Durrington High School in Worthing