Thinking Skills

ADVANCED COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME

“A major and successful initiative…the innovative thinking skills programme…makes an outstanding contribution to pupils’ general education, influencing both their own and their teachers’ approach to learning.”  Independent Schools Inspectorate Report, April 2008

Achieving excellent grades at GCSE and A level certainly gives a young person a great head start in life. However, an exclusive focus on this is not enough. To achieve highly at university and to become a successful, well-integrated member of society, it is characteristics and skills such as flexibility, creativity, initiative, tenacity, problem solving and critical analysis that are vital.

Northwood College’s Thinking Skills initiative is a unique and innovative programme designed to foster and develop these skills and dispositions in each and every pupil. Combining focused lessons and courses in areas such as visual mapping, critical thinking, decision making, creative thinking and memory techniques, with an approach to developing higher order thinking skills throughout the curriculum, we believe it offers our girls the very best chance of maximising their potential.

For more information, read about our Thinking and Learning Dispositions

“Pupils achieve outstanding levels of knowledge, skills and critical and creative understanding in their subjects and  activities, and they learn to apply them effectively.”  ISI Inspectorate Report, April 2008, p.4

The programme has attracted much interest since it was launched in 2004. It was described in the magazine, 'Teaching Thinking and Creativity', and our work has been presented at the International Conference on Thinking in Melbourne (2005) and Sweden (2007).  In March 2006, we were delighted to be invited to chair a Thinking Skills conference in Singapore, which featured the work of several leading ’thinking schools’. Since then, we have had visitors not only from London schools, but also from as far away as Australia and New Zealand.

We are excited about the work that we are doing and anticipate many more new developments in the years ahead.

Pictured above: In the Junior school, weekly thinking skills lessons introduce our girls to a huge variety of thinking and learning tools and techniques. Above, you can see Year 3 pupils learning to use Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats.

    

Pictured above, left: Year 5 sifting through clues to solve a mystery linked with their history topic on the Aztecs.

Pictured above, right: In the Sixth Form, girls have the chance to follow the OCR AS Level Critical Thinking course, as well as to take part in sessions to develop their creative thinking skills.

For further information contact C. J. Simister,  thinking@northwoodcollege.co.uk

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Find out more by viewing our Prospectus, or come and visit us

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