Take a look at what we’ve been up to and what’s been happening across the globe within the thinking community… and if you have any news you’d like to share – please don’t hesitate to contact us!
Barbara Priestman Academy is for students aged 11-19 years with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder or complex learning difficulties. They are also an accredited Advanced Thinking School. Judith Stephenson, Thinking School Coordinator at the school, shares the very positive and rewarding acknowledgement they have recently received for their first class Thinking School practices.
‘Any curriculum, good or bad, will sink or float on the culture of the classroom in which it is enacted.’
Thinking Schools in Nigeria, with Thinking Matters, is being driven by Abraham Ogunkanmbi, Programme Director at the Greensprings Montessori Centre in Lagos. Here is his report for recent developments in Greensprings itself, followed by an update of activity in other schools in Nigeria.
In Lithuania, we first heard about Thinking Schools in 2015. Richard Cummins together with Thinking Matters partner, Thinking Organisations, introduced the mission, philosophy and other main points at the event “Mokykla be sienų 2015” (trans. School with no walls 2015) which was held in Vilnius at the Lithuanian Exhibition and Congress Centre Litexpo.
Hallagerbakken Skole in Oslo, Norway has been developing their approach as a Thinking School since 2015. A group of their experienced teachers and school leaders has recently commenced training to enable them to become a hub for provision of professional development and consultancy support for future Thinking Schools across Norway, with a view to extending the Thinking Schools network there.
There is growing interest from schools in Northern Ireland to become Thinking Schools. The Thinking Matters’ approach provides a useful perspective for schools there, many of whom have been searching for more than decade to find an evidence-informed, student-centred model to assist their implementation of the statutory curriculum (CCEA, 2007) in which a ‘Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities’ framework is ‘infused’ through the Areas of Learning.
In 2012 Maidstone Grammar School for Girls (MGSG) transferred our online learning platform to Google for Education, now known as the G Suite for Education.
Paul Tyack, educator and Thinking Matters Consultant has provided a summary of the three Keynote Presentations from this year’s International Thinking Schools Conference.
New research undertaken by the University of Exeter shows the Thinking School approach impacts greatly on the progress of pupils in both primary and secondary schools in England as measured by P8, reading progress, writing progress and mathematics progress.
Our Thinking School journey started in 2013 and we were accredited in November 2017. We set out on this journey because we felt we wanted to bring something else to East Sheen Primary School.
Thinking Matters in Egypt continue to develop, taking on board new schools and a University Faculty of Nursing.
Thinking Schools Nigeria (TSN) was established after the Greensprings School Drive Team was trained by Thinking Matters, which ended in April 2018. Since then, several training sessions on the Thinking School Approach have been organised for teachers and support staff.