To Think or Not To Think? ..... That is the Question

An article by Rachel Jacob, Headteacher, Stanley Park Infants School, Sutton

Surely thinking is an automatic process of learning, however as Stanley Park Infants School in Carshalton have been finding out, learning to think and learning to learn is a crucial element of success and striving for excellence. In 2003 we began our thinking journey and what a journey it has been, one of challenge and success.

As a new headteacher and deputy headteacher appointed to a ‘good school’ we felt there was something missing which was holding back the school. By good fortune we saw the opportunity to attend a two day course with Gill Hubble, Associate Principal at St Cuthbert’s College in New Zealand, a school which has an international reputation as a Thinking School.

The course was organised by Kestrel Consulting and with the title ‘Creating a Thinking School’ captured our imagination. On a sunny autumn morning in 2004 we met the most inspirational practitioner we had ever met. We heard and used a range of thinking tools and strategies such as Thinking Maps, Habits of Mind, DATT tools, Mind Mapping, Mrs Potters Questions and much more. At the end of the first day our minds were buzzing with ideas, excitement and an eagerness to develop a plan for our own school.

The second day allowed us to reflect on approaches to making thinking skills successful in our school and Gill was able to provide us with many examples of success (and a few failures) from a practitioner’s perspective. Seeing was believing and enabled us to envisage how this work might look like in our context and setting. Being able to see, hear and think about this work in action inspired us to return to our own school to review our approaches to teaching both cognitive education and metacognitive skills and reach for the sky.

A three-fold plan emerged:

·        To learn even more and to ensure as the senior leadership team in the school that we were as knowledgeable as we could be.

·        Through discussion with staff to build a plan with agreed whole-school goals in the teaching of thinking.

·        To ensure that the children had the opportunity to learn to think and think to learn.

We invited Kestrel Consulting to work with us throughout the process.

Our motto became David Hyerle’s saying: Give them a thought and they’ll learn for a day. Teach them to think and they’ll learn for a lifetime”.

Our first year became what we called our ‘dabbling’ year when we all took part in intensive discussions abut cognitive education and metacognitive learning. We tried out lots of ideas. We heard about wonderwalls, Thinking Maps, think/pair/share, Mrs Potter’s Questions and PMIs  and many others.

The question which kept recurring was how do we make all this fit together so we reviewed and reflected and agreed we needed to begin by clarifying what thinking means along with how good questioning impacts on our thinking.

We spent a whole school training day looking at Bloom’s Taxonomy, using the CPD materials from the Excellence and Enjoyment lunchbox and reviewing the tools that would enable and empower both ourselves and the children.

School self-evaluation and rigorous monitoring enabled us to embed our first steps. Classroom observation began with teams peer mentoring and supporting one another. Higher order questioning became common-place in all classrooms, aiding differentiation and supporting both teachers and pupils to think about their learning. The children loved using techniques such as Think, Pair, Share and Wonderwalls which encouraged and enabled the flexibility of learning styles during whole-class learning. Children were encouraged to share their thoughts and were becoming equipped with tools to develop both their thinking and learning. Older children were taught how to Mind Map and use the Kidspiration software which again encouraged freedom of thought and expression.

So on to stage two. We recognised that our children need common visual languages for learning and of course that they don’t all learn in the same way. And so we moved to the work of David Hyerle and his Thinking Maps and Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. I was fortunate to be able to train as a trainer in Thinking Maps, one of only twenty four in the country and my deputy focused on analysing and adapting teaching and learning linked to multiple intelligences. Our intention was to provide our children with a range of thinking tools and strategies and help them develop their understanding of how they think.

The Thinking Maps training took place in Slough in May 2005 where Sherwin Suddreth and Morris West from Thinking Maps Inc. in America introduced us to the Maps and trained us to train others. They had been brought over to the UK by Kestrel who are their UK partner and have the sole rights to Thinking Maps in the UK.Three inspirational days. I returned to school ‘on fire’ and together with other Sutton schools established the Sutton Primary Thinking Skills Network. Twelve schools working together was ennervating and fun.

I trained my staff in the Thinking Maps in September 2006 and following this every teacher and teaching assistant had a performance management target to implement and utilise Thinking Maps across the school. This whole-school approach for a whole-school vision was an essential part of our success.

Very quickly the children were talking a ‘common visual language’. I was there to act as a mentor to my staff and guided them through planning and utilising Thinking Maps as a scaffold for learning. Watching, listening, reviewing, challenges, successes are all words which describe our journey that year. In-depth and on-going training was essential and commitment to both the thinking skills development plan and distributive leadership across the school in driving this agenda forward were crucial. Everyone on board, but governors and parents still sceptical, I remember myself saying.

‘Going for Goals’ was our next step vision through embracing all our work so far and putting together the pieces of our whole-school jigsaw puzzle with the child at the heart of all we undertook.  At our end of year review the quantitative and qualitative data for all our groups of children, validated by external agencies, cemented our view that this was what was going to make us an ‘outstanding’ school.

In 2006-7 our challenge was to develop more critical thinking skills and links to children understanding how thinking is affected by our emotions and feelings. Autumn 2006 saw the introduction of de Bono’s Thinking Hats and another visual cue which allowed our staff, children, parents and governors to fully appreciate the impact of thought on learning. During the term we introduced a new home planner with pages explaining our approaches to learning and the importance of thinking skills in our curriculum, which provided an opportunity to for parents to become even more involved in in their children’s thinking to learn and next step learning goals. This was followed by a series of parent workshops and family learning events.

Between 2005 and 2007 we have watched, heard and been part of so many  wonderful experiences that prove that the child is at the heart of all we do.  However we must allow children the opportunity to understand the themselves and think for themselves. To do this they need to be taught a range of thinking tools and strategies and these need to be used across the curriculum.

November 2007 was a milestone in our development as a thinking school as we were assessed by Professor Bob Burden of The Centre for Cognitive Education at the University of Exeter. His criteria for a thinking school have guided us along our journey so it was an exciting moment when he visited to assess us. To our delight his assessment was so positive that he described us not just as a thinking school but a higher order thinking school.

Our four year journey has provided a wealth of evidence, both written and through the experiences of our children, staff parents and governors. We are proud to be recognised for the work we have done, but are very aware that our lifelong learning journey never ends. Our next steps will be to sustain this work and continue to maximise cognitive education and ‘metacognition’ as an on-going commitment to Every Child Matters and personalised learning for all.

To summarise, what would I say to any headteacher considering this route for their school. ‘Thinking is at the heart of all we do and say, but ultimately how we learn, enable and empower our children and our teams to understand their thinking and thus allow their thinking to impact at the highest level on lifelong learning. You may be sceptical, but through enthusiasm, commitment and quality training we have  recognised that thinking is the key to true personalised learning. We can’t let these children down. They only have one chance and we must make it one they enjoy, cherish, and most of all, understand.

Rachel Jacob

Headteacher

Stanley Park Infants School

Carshalton

Sutton

Kestrel Consulting can be contacted on 01793 790052, email info@thinking.co.uk and via their website www.thinking.co.uk 

My thanks go to the following people for their support throughout our journey

Gill Hubble for inspiring us in the first place

Hugh Betterton for having the vision to bring her to Sutton.

Richard Cummins of Kestrel Consulting for all his support to me as Headteacher and Thinking Skills Consultant

All the staff and children at Nightingale Primary School, Hampshire

Sutton Thinking Skills Network, particularly Kiki Mayhew.

David Hyerle, Sherwin Suddreth and Morris West of Thinking Maps Inc.

Nanette Paine of Kestrel Consulting for her inspiration and support.

Jenny Rowley, SEAL/Healthy School Coordinator, Sutton

Gill Wong and Annette Truss, Sutton Behaviour Support Team

And the thinking gurus: Edward de Bono, Art Costa, Howard Gardner, Tony Buzan and Guy Claxton

And finally to all my children, parents and staff, but particular thanks to Catherine Lester for supporting me in fulfilling the vision for our school and Sharon Roberts for her commitment to our on-going learning journey