Thinking Skills at Wigmore Primary

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Thinking Skills at Wigmore Primary

• 6 Hat Thinking, CoRT Tools, Questioning skills,
  National Curriculum..

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What are Thinking Skills?

• Thinking is the cognitive skill of putting
  intelligence into action.
• It can be learned, practiced and improved.
• Thinking is the gateway to understanding.
• Thinking skills are mental processes that we
  apply when we want to make sense of a situation
  or experience.

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Why?

• No formal thinking skills were used, (a teacher
  might say, Ok, two minutes to think. ) But what
  does THINK actually MEAN?
• Thinking Skills help children to organise their
  learning, encourage them to reflect and evaluate,
  and they help all children to become more
  independent learners,
• Learning some thinking skills promotes
  intellectual growth and fosters gains in academic
  achievement.
• Its FUN!

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The History

• Thinking skills have been around a while
• Edward DeBono- 6 Hats, CoRT Tools
• Matthew Lipman- Philosophy for Children
• National Curriculum- Enquiry, Reasoning, Creative
  Thinking, Evaluation, Information Processing
• Shirley Clark, Ted Wragg and Professor Bloom-
  Questioning skills

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Look what weve been up to!
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6 Hats
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CoRT Tools

• Cognitive Research Trust established by Edward
  DeBono 1969
• CAF Consider All Factors
• FIP First Important Priorities
• OPV Other Peoples Views
• PMI Plus Minus Interesting

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Lets Try Something

• Imagine this Dogs can now speak.
• Try a PMI at home- What would be good, bad, or
  interesting about this!
• Links with 3 Hats Plus (yellow), Minus (black),
  Interesting (green).

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Questioning Skills

• Blooms Taxonomy
• The Red remember questions are literal,
  recall type questions, as you look up the chart,
  the questions need more thought to try and answer
  them- try some at home with your son/ daughter!

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Impact

• Raise standards
• Children to become more independent thinkers with
  evident strategies
• Children confidently using tools learnt to solve
  problems and to manage their own learning
• More practical activities, more investigations
  and out of the box thinking
• Children can decide what to do for themselves in
  their Learning Logs and in other situations!
• Useful Life Skills!

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Next Steps

• Celebration of achievements- Thinkathon!
• Evaluate our success and plan for even more
  improvement.
• Want more info? Send an email or ring Ms. Akhtar!