The days of the plenary are over. It’s the end of “two thumbs up if you understood, wave an amber card if you’re not sure, give me the middle finger if you didn’t understand a thing”. Those futile attempts to show that progress has been made during a lesson have finally gone.

Well, not quite. The activity-filled plenary still clings to life in the form of the “tell me one thing you learned today” exit ticket, subliminally implying that the classroom is a place of confinement, best escaped from.

This failure to fully kill off the plenary is down to the theory behind it being relatively sound: a quick recap of the main learning points should be useful. But a far more effective way of achieving this aim - and one that really should ring the death knell for the progress-proving plenary - is the memory platform: a retrieval springboard at the start of the following lesson that reveals whether a pupil has retained the information from the previous session.

How does it work? Here’s my guide to six retrieval practice starters.

1. The multiple-choice quiz

A predictable, but essential, memory test. Often wheeled out as an end-of-unit revision lesson, the multiple-choice quiz is strangely underused as a regular starter. Over the years, unnecessary attempts have been made to jazz up this humble method of checking understanding. I’ve witnessed countless Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? behemoths, which must have taken the poor creators hours to make, only for the pupils to get bored of the flashy graphics and tire of the time-wasting tension-building music. I stick to pen and paper, with frequent low-stakes tests spaced to test knowledge at intervals during a day, a week, a month and six months. For the most useful feedback, I include “distractor” answers: popular misconceptions that enable me to quickly assess how many students have chosen a plausible but incorrect route.

2. Fill in the gaps

This method works particularly well with diagrams. The teacher draws or projects an appropriate image on to the board but leaves various spaces for the pupils to complete (not to be confused with activities that merely involve labelling the parts). A science teacher might draw apparatus with key instruments missing; a maths teacher might omit significant symbols from formulae; a PE teacher might leave out parts of an anatomical drawing. Simple, but highly effective.

Retrieval practice in the form of a timeline with gaps for certain stages is another quick and easy method to ascertain whether learning has stuck in the medium and long term. This might include coastal erosion, Marx’s epochs of history or the Kübler-Ross cycle of grief. Timelines also provide easy opportunities for differentiation, by deciding which stages pupils start at and how far you want them to go back or forward.

3. Pictograms

Those of a certain age will remember a word game called Dingbats. As a fan of cryptic puzzles, I’ve found these irksome pictorial representations of phrases have stuck with me for years. There’s something about the vexing nature of these enigmatic conundrums that increases stickability. Pictograms work especially well in English but can easily be used to aid retention of knowledge across most subjects.

4. Post-it prompts

Give each pupil a Post-it note. Write a topic that you’ve studied previously on the board, with sub-topics if applicable. Ask pupils to write down a question about that topic. This might be based on a) something they can’t remember in detail or b) an area they feel they remember confidently but think others might have forgotten. Get them to stick their Post-it notes on the board. Arrange them into categories and use them as the basis for a quick-fire quiz, enabling you - or preferably the pupils, with your expert contributions - to immediately address common areas of uncertainty.

5. Revision clock

The normal approach to using a revision clock template is to give pupils five minutes to fill in an “hour” section of the “clock” with all they know about a particular area. Then repeat 12 times and, hey presto, a revision lesson is complete. I find this a long slog that produces diminishing returns. Instead, I prefer to use the revision clock as a regular starter, making the sections of the clock a minute duration. Or I focus on two complex topics and do a five-minute stint on each with recap and clarification in between. This is chronologically dubious - I won’t be hired by Timex any time soon - but it’s pedagogically sound, in my opinion.

6. Off the top of my head

If we expect pupils to take part in regular retrieval practice, shouldn’t we also model the benefits of a good working memory? In lieu of a regular multiple-choice quiz, I often ask each pupil in the class a question “off the top of my head”. With a class of 28 pupils, this is difficult to do spontaneously. To add extra challenge, I adapt the activity by:

* Differentiating questions to ensure they are targeted appropriately.

* Not planning questions in advance.

* Directing the questions randomly around the room, so I also have to remember who hasn’t answered one yet.

* Giving myself a time limit to complete the task.

Pupils see the mental sinews being strained and begin to recognise that I’ve had to work hard to acquire and retain the information inside my head that enables me to ask the question. And, in any lesson, that is an excellent way to start.

Mark Roberts is an assistant headteacher at a secondary school in the South West of England