THINKING MATTERS | St Pats Maghera

Thinking Matters

What is Metacognition?

Metacognition refers to the ability to think about one’s own thinking. At St. Patrick’s College, we embrace metacognition and self-regulation strategies to help our pupils become reflective, independent, and lifelong learners. Equipping our pupils and staff with skills to be reflective and life-long learners is at the heart of our visionary framework and the Thinking Matters approach. Our teachers explicitly teach metacognitive strategies that empower our pupils to become flexible and adaptable learners, capable of understanding and applying the methods that help them learn most effectively.

In St. Patrick’s College we use a range of thinking tools including Thinking Frames, Thinking Routines, Habits of Minds and much more. These tools are integrated across all subjects and key stages to promote deep thinking and meaningful learning.

What are Habits of Mind?

By cultivating strong thinking and learning skills, developing positive habits of mind is essential. Habits of mind are intelligent learning behaviours that are deliberate and reflective thinking to promote deep and meaningful learning. In our college we place a strong emphasis on nurturing these behaviours by Setting High Standards, fostering Persistence, encouraging Creativity and Innovation, and developing Metacognition. These core values help our pupils to become more thoughtful, adaptable, and self-directed in their learning journey.

What are Thinking Frames?

Thinking Frames are a particular type of ‘visual tool’ based on distinctive visual patterns which help to organise thinking/ideas. Each thinking frame corresponds to a specific type of thinking such as comparing and contrasting, sequencing, cause and effect and categorising. By using Thinking Frames as a tool for learning our pupils can plan and structure their thinking, reflect on their learning process, improve knowledge recall, and develop higher order thinking skills. Thinking Frames are a core part of our teaching and learning strategy, helping our pupils engage more deeply with tasks, solve problems more effectively and perform confidently is assessments.

Departmental Thinking Frames Examples