Why I teach pupils things I don’t need them to remember forever

Jonathan Grande explains how he and his department faced up to the paradox that teaching rich detail is vital for good historical learning and is vital for students to remember in the short term, but is not essential to remember for ever. This article sets out his exploration of why this is the case, and analyses the tight relationship between this detail and what he did want pupils to remember. How could those all important knowledge outcomes be defined? He found the answer in Dawson’s ‘takeaways’. This article goes on to share how Grande went about writing the takeaways, what he and his department learned from the process and how the takeaways can be used for assessment purposes...