Hence, after a topic is taught in school, children will typically not revisit the topic until it appears in a maths test much later. This is understandable as schools and teachers have a lot of content to cover. However, this topic-based approach does not allow topics previously taught to be systematically revisited and embedded throughout the year.
Furthermore, the majority of educational publishers follow the same pattern for their paper-based and digital products.
At SMASH Maths, our philosophy is to expose children to questions covering all topic areas of the curriculum every week, so that learning retention is improved significantly over time.
Hermann Ebbinghaus hypothesized that the speed of forgetting depends on several factors such as the difficulty of the learned material, its representation, and other physiological factors such as stress and sleep. Luckily, one of the methods Ebbinghaus hypothesised could help retain learning has since been proven to be very effective, and that is spaced repetition (or spiral practice as we at SMASH Maths call it!)
Spiral practice involves learning information on a repeated basis at regular intervals using a systematic approach.