Within a skills-led curriculum, a challenge educators face is balancing Core Competencies with subject specific content knowledge. While we assess the Competencies, subject knowledge is the filling with which students contextualise the skills. The goal of this session is to explore relevant research into knowledge retention. It will highlight insights from cognitive science, development psychology and educational research that will support students in making subject knowledge stick beyond the end of the day, week or (ideally) semester. The session will share a range of practical, hands-on classroom activities and knowledge coding strategies that can be quickly implemented to capture student interest, promote learning, and allow students to develop their Core Competencies. As a MS Science teacher, the resources shared will mainly focus on the Grade 8 and 9 Science curriculum, however the learning strategies could easily be introduced across a range of subjects.