Metacognition Update for NI Schools
It's been an incredibly busy start to the year with in school training delivered far and wide across our beautiful country - from Derry to Larne, Ballynahich to Ballinderry. Following on from our conference at Ashgrove Primary at the end of last year, we’ve had the pleasure of finding out what many of the schools across the Thinking Schools Network in NI have been progressing with.
We were blown away by Killicomaine’s Junior High School’s ‘Habits of Mind’ launch day. Such incredible creativity and energy – no wonder it was such a huge success. The wonderful Gail Henderson shared how they went about it – a video of her interview with Lorna Gardiner is available to all TSN Members via the membership portal.
The big challenges don’t disappear – the growth of Special Educational Needs provision for one. We’ve developed a ‘hybrid’ on demand course for those looking to use metacognitive tools to support SEND learners.
With the new curriculum having whizzed through the working groups – we have been looking for clues about what “Knowledge Rich” means for explicitly developing learners’ cognitive, metacognitive and self-regulatory skills in Northern Ireland. Whisper it quietly, but we were encouraged by what we’ve learned from, of all places, Flanders (have a read to find the connection!!).
Ensuring ‘knowledge rich’ doesn’t mutate into rote learning (and rote teaching!) is a challenge many of the schools in England have grappled with. The consequences for student engagement (and therefore attendance and results) as well as teacher retention aren’t encouraging if you get it wrong. So, if you want your school to combine the best of cognitive science with developing the skills to thrive in an AI world then you may be interested in talking to us about your Thinking Thread . Individual teachers can develop themselves as Cognitive Coaches if they want to stay ahead of the curve.
And if you or your staff want a really easy way of understanding how we actually remember and learn things – then there are free slots for the first five people to sign up and feedback on our new on demand course – ‘Forging Knowledge Gold’.
If you fancy a trip to England in the summer then the Festival of Metacognition is taking place on June 22nd (Canterbury) and 23rd (London Borough of Bromley). Register your interest here.
Meantime, if you haven’t read the Review of Impact that the Thinking Schools approach is having on schools across NI then it’s worth some time. If you’d like to hear more about what those schools are doing, connecting with them and hearing how Thinking Matters might support you in doing likewise…
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Whether it’s
– individual teacher
– professional development
whole school training
or stand alone resources such as our
– Adventures in Metacognition lesson plans
– Membership of the Thinking School Network
or simply advice
– we’d love to help.
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