Distributed practice

Spaced Repetition

Forget, then retrieve — that’s where the learning happens.

What the Research Says

The brain remembers things better when you review them just as you’re about to forget them. Cram everything the night before and it’s gone within a week. Revisit the same material on day one, day three, day seven, day fourteen and it sticks for months. This is the single biggest difference between students who peak in mocks and students who peak in the real exam.

Evidence Base

Study	Finding	Impact
Ebbinghaus (1885)	Without revisiting, 50% of what you learn is lost within an hour and 80% within a day.	The forgetting curve is real — and steeper than most students realise.
Cepeda et al. (2006)	Meta-analysis of 254 studies: spaced practice beat massed practice in 259 out of 271 comparisons.	Spacing works across ages, subjects, and skills.
Kang (2016)	Optimal gap ≈ 10–20% of the time until the test. For a May exam, that means revisiting material every 3–6 weeks from Year 10.	You can plan exactly when to revisit a topic.
Sisti et al. (2007)	Neurons form stronger connections during the “almost forgotten” moment of retrieval.	Struggling to recall IS the learning, not a sign you’ve failed.

Step-by-Step Method

1
Learn a topic today — read the lesson, watch the video, write notes. Mark it in a diary or app with today’s date.
2
Review in 24 hours — do a retrieval practice brain dump, or redo the knowledge check. 5–10 minutes.
3
Review again in 3 days — if you got it right yesterday, push the gap. Repeat the retrieval.
4
Review again in 7 days — by now the material is consolidating into long-term memory.
5
Review again in 2–3 weeks — gap the next review to 14 days, then 30, then 60.
6
If you fail a review — reset the schedule. Back to day 1. Don’t skip the reset — it’s the point of the system.

Example 1

Learn the break-even formula (fixed costs ÷ (selling price − variable cost per unit)) early in Year 11, then retest on day 1, day 3, day 7, day 14 and day 30. Every time, include ONE 'what happens when' question: fixed costs rise by £2,000 — break-even quantity goes up; selling price rises — break-even quantity falls; variable cost per unit falls — break-even quantity falls. The OCR spec (5.4) explicitly requires interpretation of a given break-even chart, not just calculation, so spacing the interpretation as well as the formula is how you protect those marks across the whole exam season.

Example 2

On the day you cover Stakeholders in Business (OCR 1.5), write a single sheet with two columns: 'effect of business on stakeholders' and 'effect of stakeholders on business' — with an entry for owners, employees, customers, suppliers, government and local community in each column. Retest on day 1, day 3, day 7, day 14 and day 30. OCR 1.5 names both directions as distinct bullets and students who only revise one direction drop application marks on Paper 1 Section B. Because section 1 content is synoptic and can resurface on Paper 2 (section 7), this needs locking in for the whole year — not the final week.

Common Pitfalls

Reviewing too often. If it’s easy, the gap is too short. Make it harder by stretching the interval.
Reviewing too late. If you’ve completely forgotten, you’re essentially re-learning from scratch — you lose the benefit of spacing.
No written schedule. Spaced repetition works only if you actually do the reviews. Use a calendar, the StudyVault flashcard system, or a simple Leitner box.
Skipping resets when you fail. If you couldn’t recall the material, you haven’t learnt it — regardless of how far through the schedule you were.

When to Use This

This is the organising principle of your whole revision year — not a technique you pull out near the exam. From the first lesson of Year 10, log every topic you cover and schedule reviews at 1 day, 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, and 30 days. The StudyVault flashcard system does this automatically via the Leitner method — questions move between five boxes with intervals of 1, 2, 4, 7, and 14 days. When a card comes up, do it. When it doesn’t, don’t.