Retrieval practice is the plain idea that if you want something to be remembered, pupils have to try to remember it. Re-reading the notes feels smoother and does less. A starter is the cheapest place to put that try: they are coming in, you are taking the register, nobody has started performing the new lesson yet.
This page is the do-now. It is not the end-of-lesson question. That is exit ticket ideas, and the two should talk to each other: today's exit ticket is a fair starter in a few days' time, with the surface changed. What to do when the thing they retrieve is the wrong model is in spotting misconceptions. How this sits inside assessment for learning is in AfL strategies. The full set of notes is on the blog.
What counts, and what is just a quiet start
A settling task has a real job. Bags down, date, title, the room gets quieter. Do not confuse it with retrieval. If the answer is on the board, in the knowledge organiser on the desk, or in the sentence you just said, they are copying. Copying has uses. Memory is not one of them.
- Retrieval: last lesson's idea, notes closed, a question they can get wrong.
- Not retrieval: "copy the definition and highlight the key word." "Read page 42." "Write three things you are looking forward to."
- A grey area: a quiz copied from a website, twelve questions long, raced in pairs. Some of it is retrieval. Most of the airtime is the last three questions and the argument about who won.
Low stakes matters. If the starter goes in the mark book, some pupils will copy the person next to them and you will retrieve nothing except their seating plan. Tell them it is not a grade. Then mean it. You are allowed to look. You are not obliged to score.
A shape that fits five minutes
Three questions is a good default. One from the last lesson, one from last week, one from a topic you are afraid they have parked. That spacing is the part people skip, and it is the part that stops the starter being "what I said four minutes ago in the corridor".
They write in silence. You do not circulate and hint, or the retrieval is you. At four minutes, you show the answers, briskly, and you ask for the one they found hardest by a show of hands or a word on a board. Then you start the lesson proper, unless the last-lesson question fell over. If it fell over, that is the lesson, at least for the first example. Teaching the new topic on top of a missing foundation is how you get a class that "can't do graphs" when they can't do the substitution underneath.
Do-now ideas you can rotate
Same skill, new surface. Yesterday was 1/2 + 1/3. Today is 1/4 + 1/5, and you ask for the first step only. You are not starting fractions again. You are seeing whether yesterday's correction survived the evening.
One worked error. Put up a finished answer that contains the mistake you saw most yesterday. "Find the error and fix the line." This is retrieval of the method plus a check on the misconception, and it is harder to copy at a glance than a one-word answer. Use an error someone really made. Invented errors are either too obvious or too clever.
Brain dump, then a correction. "Two minutes: write everything you can remember about the formation of a meander. No notes." Then open the book and add, in a different colour, one thing they had wrong or missing. You walk and read the first colour, not the second. The second colour is them being helped by the page. The first colour is the retrieval.
Last lesson in one line, from memory. "Write the rule we ended on, in your own words, no book." Compare it with the sentence you actually wanted. The gaps are today's opening, not a nag about revision.
A single exam-style item, cut down. Not a twelve-mark essay at the door. The command word and a plan: "This question asks you to evaluate. Write two points you would make and one counterpoint. Bullet points." You are retrieving structure. You will not live-mark prose at 9am. You can see whether "evaluate" still means "list everything you know".
Subject starters that pull their weight
Maths. Three fluency items, increasing in age: a number skill from last term, a step from last week, yesterday's method with new numbers. Resist the puzzle that only two pupils enjoy. A puzzle is a reward, not a check, unless you are going to see everyone's first line.
English. A quotation they should know, and the question "what does it show?" in five words. Or a sentence with one error from the grammar you did last month. Or "finish this analytical sentence" with the point already given, so you are retrieving the evidence, not their opinions about the theme in general.
Science. A diagram from last week with three labels removed. Or "which of these is the odd one out, and why?" where the why is the retrieval. Or the first step of the method only: "You are finding the gradient. What do you calculate first?" The full calculation can be the lesson. The first step tells you whether to bother.
Humanities. One precise fact, one "which of these two causes mattered more in the lesson, and why?", one key term used in a sentence of their own. Definition-matching is fine occasionally. Every day, it becomes a test of who can see the next person's paper.
Languages. A chunk from last lesson, a verb in the tense you are trying to keep alive, and one sentence translated both ways. Choral repetition hides the pupil who is miming.
How you look, in the minute you have
Stand where you can see five books, chosen on purpose. If the same wrong step appears twice, assume it is in the room and mention it before the new explanation. If your five are fine and the room's questions later say otherwise, your five were too easy on you. Change them tomorrow.
Do not wait for a perfect silence that some classes will not give you at the door. Start the timer anyway. A ragged start you look at is better than a pristine quiz you abandon by October.
Keep a running list of the questions that produced a useful error. Those are the ones to bring back in a fortnight. The ones everyone got right can rest for longer. You are not trying to catch them out. You are trying to stop last month's topic dying the day you moved on.
If you want the starter to name every pupil, not only the five under your nose, put the three questions through Get It? as they sit down. You type the topic, you edit what it drafts, they answer on a device with the class code, no account. You see who has still got it, who is unsure, and who needs the first example to be last week's idea. Free for a limited time. Five quiet minutes. Then you teach what the answers said, not what the scheme of work hoped.
Questions people ask
What is a retrieval practice starter?
It is a short task at the beginning of a lesson that asks pupils to remember something they have already been taught, without looking it up. The effort of remembering is the point. Copying a definition off the board is not retrieval, and neither is re-reading yesterday's notes.
What are good do-now ideas for retrieval?
Three questions from different distances: last lesson, last week, and a topic from further back. Or one worked answer with a realistic mistake in it. Or the same skill as yesterday with the numbers changed. Keep it to about five minutes, keep notes closed, and look at a few answers before you start teaching.
How long should a retrieval starter take?
Five minutes is enough in most lessons, including a minute for you to see what came back. If it takes fifteen, it has become the lesson, and you will start skipping it on the days the class comes in late. Short and daily beats long and occasional.
Should I mark retrieval practice starters?
Not as a test. Low stakes is the point: pupils will guess honestly if a wrong answer does not cost a mark. Do look at them. Sample the pupils you are unsure about, note the error that shows up twice, and let that error change the first example you teach. A starter nobody looks at is administration.
Try it on one class.
One lesson. One question. Two minutes. If it doesn't tell you something you didn't already know, walk away.
Try it free — no cardStudents need no account. They just need the code.
Read next
Exit ticket ideas: examples that tell you who got it
One exit ticket question per subject, written so a wrong answer tells you what to reteach. Maths, English, science and the rest of the timetable.
How to spot misconceptions before the end of the lesson
A misconception is a wrong idea that hangs together, not a slip. How to hear it while you can still reteach it, with checks that fit the last part of a lesson.
Assessment for learning strategies that survive a real lesson
AfL strategies worth keeping in a real KS3 or GCSE lesson, and the ones that only look like assessment. What to do with the answer once you have it.