‘Whole school or No school’ approach …
Posted on the 24th March 2015
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We are absolutely delighted to be accredited “a thinking school” as this is the result of three years of researching, planning, training and reviewing our understanding and use of the various thinking tools gradually introduced over the 3 years.
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This was a “Whole school or No school” approach and every one played a key part in the process. Our Head Teacher, Kirstin Cardus, was very keen to get the Governors and the Senior Leadership Team involved in the planning of our journey. I am particularly grateful to our students and staff drive teams who worked really hard to promote and enthuse our learners and teachers into this new initiative.
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As a school we firmly believe in the benefits and value of metacognitive education. We have dedicated the time and the effort to train our students and key members of our staff to provide not only life long learning skills but also excellent professional development. Both our students and teachers are now naturally embracing the tools daily without even realising it. This was highly praised on the accreditation day.
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As mentioned in our website, as a school we decided to introduce a thinking tool per year while trialling others in the background via the two drive teams. So, in year 1, we introduced the Thinking Maps of David Hyerle, then the De Bono’s hats and finally the Habits of Mind from Art Costa. Over the 3 years, we concentrated as well on Bloom’s taxonomy linked to our Hierarchical learning objectives, P4C (Philosophy for Children), higher level questioning and Tony Ryan’s thinker Keys. All of these tools and strategies have incontestably contributed in improving the quality of the teaching and learning in our school. It is also important to point out that since the introduction of this particular approach to teaching and learning, the results at Barton Court have noticeably improved.
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Caroline Benard-Grosso, Assistant Head Teacher
Barton Court Grammar School
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See here to find out more about Barton Court Grammar School and their thinking journey.
