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Is there any such thing as a ‘Thinking School’?
Bob Burden
The first decade of the 21st Century has witnessed the beginnings of a mini-revolution in
curriculum planning and delivery in British schools. Tired of the constricting demands of an
over-prescriptive National Curriculum and the invidious requirements of teaching to SATs,
many within the teaching profession have become conscious of the transformational nature
of cognitive approaches to learning as an alternative to transmission-based teaching. The
ideas of such luminaries as Matthew Lipman, Edward de Bono and Reuven Feuerstein,
previously considered to be ‘on the fringe’ of educational thinking, have increasingly come to
be seen as offering valuable insights into the fundamental connection between thinking and
learning.
Attempts to introduce thinking skills into schools are certainly not new. As far back as the
mid 1980s an OECD report emphasised the need for schools to produce more independent
thinkers and problem-solvers, a demand repeated more recently by the World Bank amongst
others. A Government sponsored inquiry carried out by Carol McGuinness in the 1990s
came to very similar conclusions and offered sensible advice as to one possible way
forward. Meanwhile, however, research into the effectiveness of such approaches, such as
Nigel Blagg’s evaluation of the introduction of Instrumental Enrichment into Somerset
secondary schools, appeared to produce negative or, at best, equivocal results.
At Exeter University’s Cognitive Education Centre our preliminary analysis of why so many
thinking skills initiatives either petered out or simply failed altogether led us to conclude that
the problem did not necessarily lie within the programmes themselves. Feuerstein’s theory
of Structured Cognitive Modifiability is one of the most impressively constructed theoretical
frameworks for cognitive change that has ever been produced. The foundations of Lipman’s
Philosophy for Children stretch back to Dewey and to Socrates. De Bono’s Six Hat Thinking
has been shown to bring about remarkable improvements in business organisations
worldwide. If this is the case, then where did the roots of the problem lie?
The conclusion that we reached was that the obstacles to the successful implementation of
any programme designed to teach children to learn how to learn were almost entirely
systemic. There was little wrong with the programmes themselves, only the ways in which
they were being introduced into schools. Firstly, there was what Georgiades and Phillimore
referred to many years ago as ‘The Myth of the Hero Innovator’. In a highly influential article
they pointed out that innovations are often introduced by enthusiastic individuals, possibly
teachers returning from a conference or course, who seek to impose their new-found
enthusiasm upon an unresponsive audience of sceptical colleagues. In a telling phase,
Georgiades and Phillimore commented that ‘organisations, like dragons, eat hero-innovators
for breakfast.’ Thus, deprived of support or nourishment, the innovation will inevitably fail.
This was clearly exemplified in Blagg’s study and a more recent small scale evaluation of
one school’s thinking skills initiative by the present writer and his colleague, Lousie Nichols.
Secondly, the ever increasing demands on teachers to meet various externally imposed
targets left little time or opportunity for creative curriculum planning, or for further reflection
and innovation. It was only when frustrated with a National Curriculum that gave the
impression, at least, of focussing mainly on the regurgitation of information by means of
timed assessment tasks, that teachers began to cast their eyes widely for more processbased
approaches to teaching and learning. Although cognitive (or, as they were more
commonly known, ‘thinking skills’) approaches appeared to many to offer more promising
alternatives, advocates of each of these programmes often fell into the trap of appearing to
claim that they could provide the answer to all of traditional schooling’s ills. Alternatively, by
taking a piecemeal approach to teaching thinking and study skills, the danger became one of
adding the occasional stimulating lesson devoted to thinking skills as a kind of ‘sticking
plaster’ solution. Fairly soon those who took on the message found themselves asking, in
the words of the immortal Peggy Lee, ‘Is that all there is?’
The breakthrough came from an unexpected direction. The literature on school
effectiveness and school improvement, since the early work of Michael Rutter and Peter
Mortimore and his colleagues at the Institute of Education, later summarised by Teddie and
Reynoldshad more or less come to similar conclusions on how to recognise an effective
school and what needed to be done to achieve a school’s vision. What they did rather less
well was to offer ideas on how to reach those goals. It was the recognition of the potential
value of combining the lessons from the school effectiveness/improvement literature and
cognitive education approaches that gave rise to the concept of the ‘Thinking School’.
What is a Thinking School
The definition of a thinking school that emerged is one of an educational community in which all members share a common commitment to giving regular, careful thought to everything that takes place. This will involve learning how to think, reflectively, critically and creatively, and to employing these skills and techniques in the co-construction of a meaningful curriculum and associated activities. Successful outcomes will be reflected in students across a wide range of abilities demonstrating independent and co-operative learning skills, high levels of achievement, and both enjoyment and satisfaction in learning. Benefits will also be shown in ways which all members of the community interact with and show consideration for each other and in the positive psychological well-being of both students and staff.
In order to achieve this goal, a whole school approach will be necessary whereby all
stakeholders (including parents and school governors) are fully committed to the school’s
aims and how they can best be achieved. Staff will need to be specially trained and
methods will need to be introduced into the curriculum for teaching the skills of thinking and
associated cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies. The widest possible application of these
skills and strategies should underpin all other aspects of the curriculum and should guide
behaviour policies and expectations about human interactions at every level and care for the
environment.
Working with such pioneers as Gill Hubble from St Cuthbert’s School in New Zealand and a
group of thinking skills practitioners and trainers from the Kestrel organisation we followed
this definition by constructing criteria for identifying and achieving a successful Thinking
School. In sharing these criteria with various schools that had already started on the journey,
the idea of Thinking School accreditation became the logical next step. Fourteen criteria
were established and schools were offered the opportunity of producing a portfolio of
evidence to demonstrate how these had been met. A follow-up visit to the school by a
member of the Cognitive Education Centre Team made it possible for teachers, classroom
assistants, school governors, parents and pupils to be interviewed, lessons to be observed
and pupils’ work to be shared. At the completion of this process the school receives a report
and, if successful, a certificate and trophy, and the right to print the CEC logo on any formal
school literature.
The selected criteria, their reasons for selection and the kind of evidence needed to show
that they have been met, are presented below.
Criteria for Accreditation as a Thinking School
1. There is a need for the Principal/Headteacher to have made a formal commitment to
cognitive education as a means of school improvement as a central aspect of the
school’s development plans. This is because all the school
effectiveness/improvement literature identifies the crucial importance of leadership in
the change process. This is most readily shown in the printed documentation that
the school makes available to current and prospective parents and to reports to the
governors.
2. This commitment to cognitive education must have the explicit support of the school
governors. There have undoubtedly been occasions when an enthusiastic
headteacher has been frustrated by a governing body that has failed to see the full
benefit of a cognitive approach, but has been more influenced by a drive for
examination success at all costs. For this reason a formal statement of support by
the Chair of Governors is necessary, together with evidence of ongoing support from
the governors in the minutes of their meetings, which may well include a record of
how they themselves have been informed about or even trained in the cognitive
approach.
3. It is necessary for each school to have a formally appointed high status member of
staff as their Cognitive Education Coordinator to organise and oversee the
implementation of the cognitive education development agenda. There are several
reasons for this. It is usually impractical for the Principal to take on this role, but
unless it is seen as a highly prestigious post within the school, particularly in large
schools, research has shown that the cognitive agenda can be so easily sidelined or
undermined by competing demands. Here we are looking for details of the appointed
person’s background and experience, particularly with regard to their previous and
current training in different cognitive approaches.
4. One of the first tasks of the Cognitive Education Coordinator after their appointment
should be to establish a task force or subgroup of colleagues, from across curriculum
subjects in large schools, to ensure that communication and co-operation takes place
across the school and that discussions amongst staff and the teaching of thinking
skills and strategies can occur by means of a cascade model. This will help to
overcome the dangers of the hero-innovator tendency and will prove vital in leading
to a committed ‘critical mass’ of cognitively orientated staff. Evidence here should
take the form of listed names and roles, together with recorded details of discussion
and planning meetings.
5. This should in time lead to the vast majority (at least 80%) of the school staff,
including LSAs, demonstrating a clear understanding of what is meant by a cognitive
curriculum, why it has been undertaken and how they can best contribute to it. This
should be demonstrated in their pedagogy and in the nature of the tasks they set and
the quality of the work produced by their pupils.
6. Implementation of a cognitive curriculum is most likely in the first instance is to be
through an examination of the major cognitive programmes on offer. This should
lead to the adoption of a least two programmes over a three year period, but may
involve some degree of trial and error learning, that is, by deciding to reject one or
another of the commercially available programmes and favouring another which
seems to fit more readily with the school’s vision and action plan. At the time of
writing, the most popular and well founded programmes in the UK appear to be David
Hyerle’s ‘Thinking Maps’, Edward de Bono’s ‘Six Hat Thinking’, variations of Matthew
Lipman’s ‘Philosophy for Children’, Art Costa’s ‘Habits of Mind’ and Guy Claxton’s
Building Learning Power.
Schools tend to vary in order in which they begin, but no school achieving
accreditation has yet indicated that any one programme fulfils all the requirements of
a cognitively oriented curriculum. Two is an absolute minimum, for starters, but
gradually schools find that they can build upon their growing confidence and
expertise by taking on complementary programmes like Adey and Shayer’s ‘CASE’,
‘CAME’ and ‘Let’s Think’ programmes, the Thinking through History, Geography etc
programmes constructed mainly at Newcastle University, or by developing their own
home-grown approaches. The evidence of this process and the reasoning behind
the adoption and/or rejection of different approaches should be clearly documented.
7. All this should be part of an Action Plan that has been drawn up by the Cognitive
Education Team, endorsed by the Principal and governors and disseminated to all
members of staff.
8. It is obviously important that a Cognitive Education Coordinator needs her/himself to
be highly trained and confident in a range of potentially useful programmes and
techniques and should see this as an essential ongoing aspect of his/her role. It is
not enough for someone in this position to have attended a preliminary training
course in a particular technique and expect to remain ahead of the game. Details of
an ongoing CPD programme must therefore be made available.
9. All staff should be encouraged to attend external courses or should receive constant
in-house training by the ‘home’ team and/or highly rated external consultants.
Documented reports of such training and its outcomes should also be available for
public scrutiny.
10. Taking a cognitive approach to the curriculum carries with it assumptions about
alternative forms and outcomes of assessment, formative assessment for learning
should be the norm running alongside more conventional assessment of learning
outcomes. We would also expect to see an emphasis upon pupil self-assessment
and peer assessment as part of the regular assessment process. A Thinking School
will also have considered possible alternative ways of assessing learning outcomes
such as enhanced pupil self-esteem and increasing enjoyment in learning, and even
increased staff satisfaction in teaching.
11. At the end of the day, there is a requirement for evidence of positive learning
outcomes, attitudes and behaviours of the pupils to indicate that they are operating
as thoughtful responsible learners who are able to articulate how and why thinking
skills and strategies are a vitally important aspect of all that occurs in their schools.
This can be seen in the nature and quality of the pupils’ work (including homework),
interest they show in their work, positive attitudes towards school, enjoyment and
confidence in learning, good attendance and behaviour records, a significant
decrease in bullying and improved attainment and exam results, where this is
reasonable to expect. Much of this can be revealed during the evaluation visit to the
school, but will also require careful record keeping of critical incidents and other
indications of change.
12. Few innovations ever work completely smoothly from start to finish. In fact,
becoming a recognised Thinking School does not signify the end of the journey,
merely a significant moment along the way. This implies that there will be a need to
constantly review the effectiveness of the thinking tools employed in developing
pupils’ metacognition and wider thinking strategies. A Thinking School will constantly
be on the look-out for additional or useful approaches to enhance their children’s
learning, and for ways of evaluating these.
13. The whole school approach means exactly that. Here we are looking for evidence
that all members of staff are being encouraged to discuss on a regular basis the
process of cognitive education and how it can be maintained and improved. The
evident enthusiasm of all staff members for the cognitive approach will be a
significant feature in illustrating how well this is working.
14. All of the above should be manifest in the whole ethos of the school, in the way it
conveys a positive, caring and creative atmosphere to all stakeholders and visitors,
whilst at the same time demonstrating that careful thought has been put into its
organisational structure and visual presentations. This is likely to be shown in
examples of the pupils’ work and displays that adorn the school, the way that visitors
are received and treated and the general ‘feel’ of the way in which everyone goes
about their business.
Outcome so far
At the time of writing nearly 30 schools across England and Wales and one school in South
Australia have successfully navigated the accreditation process. The ratio of primary to
secondary schools currently stands at about 4 to 1, but every level of socio-economic and
cultural background has been represented. Some are small, three teacher schools, others
cater for more than a thousand students. Of the secondary schools four are single sex
grammar schools, whilst three are comprehensives. All have received good or outstanding
Ofsted reports, with many receiving specific mention for the unique contribution of the
cognitive approach to the pupils’ learning. As yet there is little formal evidence of the effects
of the cognitive approach apart from the schools meeting the set criteria, but the following
informal outcomes have been very apparent. Where there has been obvious room for
improvement, attainments have risen; attitudes to towards school and to learning have been
shown to be positive across the board; bullying and negative behaviour is virtually non
existent. The expressed attitudes of more than 90% of the teaching and support staff in
every accredited school reflect high personal satisfaction and enjoyment in their chosen
profession.
Accreditation is provided for a three year period, after which the school will need to provide
evidence that it has continued to move forward in its quest to demonstrate that an emphasis
upon the transformational process of teaching and learning offers far more than one in which
information transmission rules the day. Several schools are currently preparing for
reaccreditation as they approach the end of this initial accreditation period. The task of the
CEC is to find ways of identifying whether and how well they have moved forward in that
time. One important criterion currently being considered is the production of evidence of
student, staff and/or parental responses by means of questionnaire surveys or ‘home grown’
research projects. Another criterion may well be how well the school has been able ‘to
spread the word’ and influence the take up of these ideas in other schools. Another may be
the way in which the school has been able to apply the cognitive approach to considering
‘big questions’.
What does seem indisputable is that this revolution is growing fast, even to the extent of
provoking the forces of reaction into ludicrously seeking to suppress schoolchildren’s rights
to partake in decision-making processes that affect their future. To paraphrase a famous
Bette Davis quote from ‘All About Eve’, ‘fasten your seatbelts folks, this is going to be a
bumpy ride!’
References
Blagg, N. (1919) Can We Teach Intelligence? Hillsdale, N.J. Lawrence Erlbaum
Burden, R.L. & Nichols, S.L. (2000) Evaluating the process of introducing a thinking skills
programme into the secondary school curriculum. Research Papers in Education 15, 3. 293-
306.
Burden, R.L. & Williams, M.D. (1998) Thinking through the Curriculum. London: Routledge.
Georgides, N. & Phillimore, L. (1975) The myth if the hero-innovator and alternative
strategies for organisational change. In C. Kiernan & E.P. Woodford (eds) Behaviour
Modification with the Severely Retarded Amsterdam: Assoc. Sci. Pub.
McGuiness, C. (1999) From Thinking Skills to Thinking Classrooms: A review and
Evaluation of Approaches for Development Students’ Thinking Norwich: Dept for Education
and Employment.
Teddlie, C. & Reynolds, D. (2000) The International Handbook of School Effectiveness
Research London: Falmer
Bob Burden is Emeritus Professor of Applied Educational Psychology at the Graduate School
of Education, Exeter University, and Director of the Cognitive Education Centre, which he
founded in 2005. He is the author of one book and numerous articles about cognitive
education, and is former President of the International School Psychology Association. Further
details about the CEC can be found on the website