Pick a school that encourages thinking

Hashi Syedain, freelance journalist and former pupil of Northwood College, considers a revolutionary teaching and learning strategy being used to great effect inside and outside the classroom

Good exam results come more or less as standard in the majority of private schools, but an exceptional school should teach a child to think, as well as to learn.

“It is perfectly possible for a child to be an enthusiastic learner, who will get plenty of A grades, while still being a passive thinker,” says C J Simister, Director of the Advanced Cognitive Development Programme at Northwood College, a girls’ school in north-west London. 

“This matters,” Mrs Simister argues, “because success in a fast changing world depends on the ability to tackle new, unfamiliar and challenging situations with confidence. To do that,” she says, “you need habits of mind that are often quite different to those required to pass exams.” 

This is also the philosophy behind the Go4it schools award, which recognizes schools that promote creativity, innovation and a positive attitude to risk. Started by HTI, an organization that brings together leaders from business and education, Go4it challenges schools to ensure that their pupils are prepared for life beyond school and exams. 

To be awarded Go4it status a school has to provide a portfolio of evidence of ways in which its activities, teaching and learning promotes the attitudes, behaviours and skills of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Northwood College is the first school north of the Thames to get Go4it status and has long recognised the issues that the award seeks to champion. Headmistress Jacqualyn Pain says that promoting a balanced approach to education means looking much wider than exam success. “Our girls do extremely well at GCSE and A level, but I want more for them than that,” she says. “I want every girl to leave here knowing she has achieved all she can academically and intellectually, but also with a clear moral compass and a firm understanding that, as a leader in society, she has a responsibility for others.”

One of the things that the school is especially proud of is its unique Thinking Skills Programme, developed by Mrs Simister and now in its fifth year. Promoting active thinking is especially important for academically bright girls, according to Mrs Simister. “Research has shown that bright girls are the most susceptible to passive thinking. They rely on praise and have the most to lose from failure. That makes them more likely to opt for the safe bet,” she says. 

The school employs a wide range of techniques to promote active thinking in all the subjects, as well as in special ‘Thinking Skills’ sessions and also through extracurricular activities.

So what does a Thinking Skills lesson actually look like? Mrs Simister explains the Year 7 course called ‘Thinking through…’. The 30-week programme involves six one-lesson sessions on each of the five ‘habits for success’ - risk-taking, persistence, initiative, flexibility and managing impulsivity. Some are easier to tackle than others, she admits. For the initiative module, for example, Mrs Simister set the first session up so that the whole year group arrived in the school hall to find that nothing had been prepared and no teacher was there to guide them. She planted subtle clues around the room, such as a seating plan and had briefed other members of staff to send any girls back to the hall who left to ask for advice. She and the other course teachers were secretly filming proceedings from the hall’s balcony.

What she saw was that about 10% of girls really tried to take a lead in organizing everyone else, while a further 50% took individual initiative, like setting the room up according to the seating plan. The remaining girls watched or entertained themselves, while waiting for a teacher to turn up.

“Afterwards we all discussed what had happened, identifying and praising specific examples of initiative in action,” said Mrs Simister and over the following five weeks, girls were divided into groups to devise a lesson plan for teaching a younger class about initiative. The best groups then actually delivered their lessons to the younger children.

Is this a thinking school?
Although not every school will have as impressive an approach to thinking skills as Northwood College, there are things parents can look out for.

It’s a good idea to ask if the school has a Head of Learning and to speak to them, if possible. The following questions can also give useful pointers. A thinking school should be able to give comprehensive and coherent answers to them all.

1) Tell me about your approach to teaching and learning.

2) How do you ensure that pupils are given the opportunity to discover learning approaches that work most effectively for them?

3) What do you do to encourage your pupils to think independently? 

4) How do you nurture qualities such as persistence, risk taking, creativity and initiative?

5) How do you think parents should use league tables?

6) How do you encourage pupils to pick their A levels?

Hashi Syedain is a freelance journalist and former pupil of Northwood College

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