The school is trying to become accredited as a Thinking School and part of this process is to help students realise that there are different ways of thinking about things. The skill is in knowing which thinking tool is appropriate for different learning situations in subjects. Knowing this should help learning because students will be able to change the information they need to know and understand into a form that the brain can cope with more efficiently.

This project is currently engaged in research to discover which Thinking Skills suit our particular students best. We have used our Enrichment Day programme to deliver various thinking tools to Years 9 - 13. Years 7 and 8 will have their training early next year. We have a dedicated Drive Team of teachers who have been trained in a variety of different Thinking Skills; hence the ‘toolbox' idea, they use whichever tool best suits the task. This ‘bottom-up' model has meant that students are taking thinking tools from the enrichment day sessions and are using them in their lessons.

Training for staff has also been available with an expert delivering his vision of Habits of Mind to teachers as part of our twilight CPD.

Visits to other schools have been carried out with staff attending a conference at Cramlington Community High School and observing at St Martin's School in Harlow . Our programme has been shared with other schools at a conference hosted by Oakwood Park as part of the Deep Leadership Hub and at a Leading Edge conference at Bexley Grammar School . Madginford Primary School are interested in their staff being trained in the use of Thinking Maps by our trained Thinking Skills Co-ordinator.

Further work will be carried out in staff training with an invitation to other schools to hear our guest speakers at some time next year.

We have a three year plan to deliver different types of Thinking Skills

Year 1: Critical Thinking Skills

Year 2: Caring Thinking Skills

Year 3: Creative Thinking Skills

We are aiming to equip the students with a Thinking Toolbox where they will have experienced a variety of techniques that they can select from to fit different situations.

Techniques we have introduced so far include:

•  Hyerle's Thinking Maps

•  De Bono's Thinking Hats

•  Mysteries

•  Deep questioning techniques

•  Building Learning Power

•  De Costa's Habits of Mind

We have also incorporated Emotional Intelligence into our programme at Key Stage 3 and all our Year 12 students are studying AS Critical Thinking.

Useful Links:

Thinking Hats: http://www.suffolkschools.net/learning/hats

Thinking Maps: http://www.thinkingmaps.com/htthinkmap.php3

http://www.mapthemind.com/thinkingmaps/thinkingmaps.html#concept

Building Learning Power: http://www.thegrid.org.uk/leadership/programmes/conferences/documents/guy_claxton_presentation.pdf

De Costa's Habits of Mind: http://www.habitsofmind.org/what_are_the_habits_of_mind.htm

Mysteries: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/secondary/keystage3/downloads/ws_lil_ts003605slead.pdf