After a little modelling such as that described above, it was over to our ATs to make their own connections between the A-Z and the curriculum, and they rose to the challenge wonderfully well.

For anyone wanting to explore a metacognition approach to early-years practice then Roger’s Thinking Moves A-Z and my book, Beautiful Thinking, are a great place to start but you also have the tools already available to you right now. Just take a peek inside the early-years framework, Development Matters, and you will find that the whole of the Characteristics of Learning are metacognition skills. Embedding metacognition in the early years supports children to master their own cognition and gives them a voice for life. Our thinking ability is what makes us distinctively human. Yet we have no generally accepted approach to teaching thinking – and no common vocabulary to describe different ways of thinking. This, when you think about it, is extraordinary. Imagine trying to teach or learn maths if we did not have commonly accepted terms such as add, subtract, multiply and divide. The main framework is PHILOSOPHICAL TEACHING-AND-LEARNING (PTL). Its six interwoven strands derive from the traditions of philosophy and P4C, but draw new power from six other pedagogical approaches developed in the last half-century.In every single lesson, I use LOOK/LISTEN. It is important to do this because we need to know what the teacher is showing us and telling us so that we can learn to do it ourselves” – Riona aged 7 For example, within literacy we have raised our focus on the Thinking Move Infer. For children to gather information from a story is a key skill for future progression. Within science we emphasise the need to Test and within music we support children to Respond. Progression planning now has a clear focus on cognitive challenge, as well as subject knowledge.

Thinking Moves A – Z is a structured approach to thinking about thinking – a framework for metacognition. In this video, Roger Sutcliffe explains how it works. Roger Sutcliffe had been focussed on teaching thinking in one way or another for 40+ years – as an English teacher, then a Maths teacher, then a Philosophy for Children trainer, and for some years as a consultant for Thinking Schools International. Following the closure of schools in March 2020, Diane Swift, Director of Keele and North Staffordshire Teacher Education ( KNSTE, where I am a tutor), took the decision to engage our Associate Teachers (ATs) with Thinking Moves A-Z, an approach to teaching for metacognition. It proved to be a very positive experience for all, as I will attempt to explain below.Students at Sandringham Primary, Newham, London could remember all 26 Thinking Moves in their very first session with facilitator, Paul Kell

Stephen Walshe argues that children, even children as young as 5 years of age, can be introduced to a vocabulary that helps them access their thinking. Metacognition has been identified as a powerful lever for learning. School Improvement Liverpool (SIL) supports educational settings to enable children and young people to be safe, develop, learn and achieve. To this end, we have developed a collaboration with Dialogue Works with a view to enhancingacademic progress, especially for lower attaining and disadvantaged students. Metacognition is embedded throughout continuous provision and is accessed by all children through personalised interactions. Enhancements are offered across the curriculum and metacognition forms a vehicle on which targeted teaching is delivered. For example, by combining thinking moves together, we have created thinking grooves. By using certain moves together, the flow of thinking is explicit.Moreover, after a while, even very young students begin to understand that the Moves are connected, and we can then look at Thinking Grooves. Over time, as confidence grows, the use of metacognitive language becomes a natural part of daily discourse. Whether in the staffroom over lunch, planning the timetable or sharing a jigsaw, metacognition has become a part of daily life. 4. Use to support targeted teaching across the curriculum This greater awareness of one’s own thought processes and the ability to manage them better is known as metacognition. Approaches that develop metacognition in schools are recognised to have a high impact on learning. According to the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF): Research by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has shown that effective strategies for metacognition and self-regulation: The Education Endowment Foundation found that “evidence suggests the use of ‘metacognitive strategies’– which get pupils to think about their own learning - can be worth the equivalent of an additional +7 months’ progress when used well. However, while the potential impact of these approaches is very high, particularly for disadvantaged pupils, less is known about how to apply them effectively in the classroom.” I think that this may be because many people either have never heard of metacognition or they believe it to be more academic and confusing than it really is. In reality, it is something we do all the time and every day.

NACE Associate Amanda Hubball, Deputy Head and More Able Lead at Challenge Award-accredited Alfreton Nursery School, shares five key approaches to embed metacognition in the early years. I use Thinking Moves in my essay planning. I DIVIDE and CONNECT points for/against. I WEIGH UP and JUSTIFY in assess questions. I use KEYWORD, GROUP, and EXEMPLIFY in my revision when making flashcards for different questions. I also use ZOOM IN / OUT and SIZE when writing about issues going from a local to a national or international scale. I use the PICTURE move the most. I use it when I read to help me imagine what is happening in the story. I use it when I need to set out my work neatly - I can picture what my finished work should look like.”- Maria aged 8 We are an international primary school that has around 600 students and 65 teachers and teaching assistants from all over the world with a significant number learning English as a second language. Our curriculum for Maths and English follows the UK curriculum with the other subjects being taught through topics using the International Primary Curriculum.When we talk about the progression of mathematical understanding we have a shared language. We all understand what it means to engage in addition and subtraction. Phonics, science . . . all areas of learning have a common linguistic foundation. Are better when taught in collaborative groups so that learners can support each other and make their thinking explicit through discussion; We can then reflect on the Thinking Moves or a particular Move we have used, like, thinking ahead and ask ourselves, when it is important to use such a move and how we can get better at this kind of thinking. Thinking Moves and sign language Gradually it became clear that mathematical skills progression was being facilitated by the conscious application of metacognition. As data below evidences, fewer children struggled to move beyond barriers to learning in maths than in other areas.