Roger Sutcliffe, Director of DialogueWorks and Creator of the Thinking Moves A-Z

As Kate Hosey said in her blog post in 2022, some students – perhaps many – can “find it hard to motivate themselves to be more active in their learning”.

There may be various reasons for this, some of which may be related to social trends beyond the classroom. This blog post is not intended to offer a cure for all of those!

What it offers is a simple suggestion, that students might be more engaged with their learning if they saw it as a way of developing skills for life – followed by another, as to how that desired outcome might be reached.

What do we mean by ‘learning’?

The word ‘learning’ is ambiguous between content – what is learnt – which is typically ‘subject’-based, and process – the daily slog, and sometimes satisfaction, of ‘studying’.

Many students, if not most, see learning predominantly as the former – the acquisition of stipulated knowledge, rather than the development of smart skills for life.

But what could be smarter than cognitive – essentially, thinking – skills? (Well, perhaps metacognitive ones – but watch this space!)

If only the teaching and learning process explicitly promoted and practised such skills, then maybe, just maybe, more students would value and engage with the process.

How could this ideal be reached? The key is in the word ‘explicitly’. Any taught lesson, at any level and in any subject, demands of the students a variety of thinking skills. (If not, it cannot be worth its salt!)

How often are these demands spelled out? To be fair, the best teachers will do this, if not in advance of a learning task, then afterwards, by way of explaining how it could have been done better.

But there are still two challenges to be overcome.

Developing a shared language for thinking skills

I recognised the first of these challenges about 15 years ago, when I was commissioned to teach some teachers (more) about thinking skills. It is that there is no common language for teachers and learners to talk about thinking skills, nor indeed any appreciation of the full range of such skills.

That was when I set about creating Thinking Moves A-Z, a list of the 26 most fundamental cognitive skills – which has the further merit of being easy to learn and use.

This scheme enables teachers to be clear what sorts of thinking they are expecting students to practise in any given lesson. Typically, they might highlight two or three metacognitive ‘moves’ per lesson for the students to focus on, but over a term or year they might aim to cover as full a range as possible.

The second challenge is that, ultimately, the aim is for students not only to be more aware of their capacity for different sorts of thinking – what I sometimes call their ‘brain powers’ – but to practise those skills independently: to see themselves as, and indeed to be, ‘good thinkers’.

That, of course, is the point at which those skills can properly be called ‘metacognitive’ – when students are not just thinking about their thinking, but doing so with purpose and with proficiency.

Inspiration, aspiration, and commitment

But I must return to the main question of this blog, namely how to get students to appreciate this ultimate aim, and to engage with it.

As to the appreciation, I have already hinted that simply providing students with a common and complete vocabulary for thinking about thinking is likely to be interesting, if not inspiring, to them.
What student would not be impressed to be told that their brain/mind is capable of 26 different ‘moves’, and indeed has been making them daily – but without their even realising it?

And then what student would not aspire to become better at some, if not all, of these moves – to become ‘good’ at thinking AHEAD (predicting or aiming), for example, or thinking BACK (remembering or reflecting)?

Of course, some students will still need to be encouraged – motivated – to commit themselves to this aspiration, and to the journey involved.

Getting better at EXPLAINING, for example, involves long-term commitment to expanding one’s vocabulary, and to deploying words with care.

Getting better at WEIGHING UP (evaluating) involves deep commitment to open-mindedness and fairness.

And getting better at balancing ZOOMING OUT and ZOOMING IN involves commitment to the move most fundamental for metacognition – being able to step back from time to time and look at the whole picture, before deciding which aspect to focus on next – a balancing cycle we all repeat all the time, again usually without realising it.

Unlocking the full benefits of metacognition

Metacognition is not just the ability to manage your thinking better in various ways. It is the ability, I maintain, to manage your whole self – your feelings and actions as well as your thinking.

That includes the ability to recognise what is in your interest as well as what you are interested in, and to commit to some actions that might not be as appealing as others.

I realise that it is asking a lot of young people to reach the level of self-awareness where they are completely self-motivated in this way. So, I repeat that young people need steady encouragement from their teachers to be better thinkers, as well as just better learners.

But I think that there is an even greater intrinsic value to becoming more metacognitive – more self-aware and more self-managing.

To sum up, then, I am saying that part of motivating students to become metacognitive is to spell out to them what metacognition is, so that they know how they could actively develop that capacity in themselves.

In my next blog post, I will do a bit more explaining of metacognition, since I think it is not as well understood, even by educationalists, as it might be. ‘Thinking about your thinking’ is a good starting explanation, but it lacks some vital ingredients. Other accounts are similarly too narrow, and rather formulaic.

Metacognition is potentially a key to fuller and richer living, not just more proficient learning. It should, then, be a driving concept for all schools and teachers.

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Roger Sutcliffe is Director of DialogueWorks and Creator of the Thinking Moves A-Z. He taught at both junior and senior level (English and Maths) for over 25 years, and has been an independent educational consultant, specialising in Philosophy for Children and Teaching Thinking, for the last 25 years. He is a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching.

Roger is currently collaborating with NACE on a four-part course based on the Thinking Moves A-Z, open to schools across all phases and contexts. If you missed the first session, it’s not too late to join! Contact us to arrange access to the recording of Session 1, and live participation in the remaining three sessions.

Lol Conway, Curriculum Consultant and Trainer for the Design and Technology Association

Throughout my teaching, inclusivity has always been at the forefront of my mind – ensuring that all students can access learning, feel included, and thrive. Like many of my fellow teachers, at the start of my teaching career my focus was often directed towards supporting SEND or disadvantaged students, for example. I have come to realise, to my dismay, that more able students were not high up in my consideration. I thought about them, but often as an afterthought – wondering what I could add to challenge them. Of course, it should always be the case that all students are considered equally in the planning of lessons and curriculum progression and this should not be dictated by changes in school data or results. Inclusivity should be exactly that – for everyone.

True inclusivity for more able students isn’t about simply adding extra elements or extensions to lessons, much in the same way that inclusivity for students with learning difficulties isn’t about simplifying concepts. Instead, it’s about structuring lessons from the outset in a way that ensures all students can access learning at an appropriate level. 

I realised that my approach to lesson planning needed to change to ensure I set high expectations and included objectives that promoted deep thinking. This ensured that more able students were consistently challenged whilst still providing structures that supported all learners. It is imperative that teachers have the confidence and courage to relentlessly challenge at the top end and are supported with this by their schools. 

As a Design and Technology (D&T) teacher, I am fortunate that our subject naturally fosters higher-order thinking, with analysis and evaluation deeply embedded in the design process. More able students can benefit from opportunities to tackle complex, real-world problems, encouraging problem-solving and interdisciplinary connections. By integrating these elements into lessons, we can create an environment where every student, including the most able, is stretched and engaged. However, more often than not, these kinds of skills are not always nurtured at KS3.

Maximizing the KS3 curriculum

The KS3 curriculum is often overshadowed by the annual pressures of NEA and examinations at GCSE and A-Level, often resulting in the inability to review KS3 delivery due to the lack of time. However, KS3 holds immense potential. A well-structured KS3 curriculum can inspire and motivate students to pursue D&T while also equipping them with vital skills such as empathy, critical thinking, innovation, creativity, and intellectual curiosity.

To enhance the KS3 delivery of D&T, the Design and Technology Association has developed the Inspired by Industry resource collection – industry-led contexts which provide students with meaningful learning experiences that go beyond theoretical knowledge. We are making these free to all schools this year, to help teachers deliver enhanced learning experiences that will equip students with the skills needed for success in design and technology careers. 

By connecting classroom projects to real-world industries, students gain insight into the practical applications of their learning, fostering a sense of purpose and motivation. The focus shifts from achieving a set outcome to exploring the design process and industry relevance. This has the potential to ‘lift the lid’ on learning, helping more able learners to develop higher-order skills and self-directed enquiry.

These contexts offer a diverse range of themes, allowing students to apply their knowledge and skills in real-world scenarios while developing a deeper understanding of the subject and industry processes. Examples include:

• Creating solutions that address community issues such as poverty, education, or homelessness using design thinking principles to drive positive change;
• Developing user-friendly, inclusive and accessible designs for public spaces, products, or digital interfaces that accommodate people with disabilities;
• Designing eco-friendly packaging solutions that consider materials, manufacturing processes, and end-of-life disposal.

These industry-led contexts foster independent discovery and limitless learning opportunities, particularly benefiting more able students. By embedding real-world challenges into the curriculum, we can push the boundaries of what students can achieve, ensuring they are not just included but fully engaged and empowered in their learning journey.

Find out more…

NACE is partnering with the Design & Technology Association on a free live webinar on Wednesday 4 June 2025, exploring approaches to challenge all learners in KS3 Design & Technology. Register here.

Amanda Hubball, Deputy Head and More Able Lead at Alfreton Nursery School, explores the power of metacognition in empowering young people to overcome potential barriers to achievement.  

Disadvantage presents itself in different ways and has varying levels of impact on learners. It is important to remember that disadvantage is wider than children who are in receipt of pupil premium or children who have a special educational need. Disadvantage can be based around family circumstances, for example bereavement, divorce, mental health… Disadvantages can be long-term or short-term and the fluidity of disadvantage needs to be acknowledged in order for educators to remain effective and vigilant for all children, including more able learners. If we accept that disadvantage can impact any child at any time, then it is essential that we provide all children with the tools they need to navigate challenge.    

More able learners are as vulnerable to the impact of disadvantage as other learners and indeed research would suggest that outcomes for more able learners are more dramatically impacted by disadvantage than outcomes for other children. A cognitive toolbox that is familiar, understood and accessible at all times, can be a highly effective support for learners when there are barriers to progress. By ensuring that all learners are taught metacognition from the beginning of their educational journey and year on year new metacognition skills are integrated, a child is empowered to maintain a trajectory for success.       

How can metacognition reduce barriers to learning?         

Metacognition supports children to consciously access and manipulate thinking strategies, thus enabling them to solve problems. It can allow them to remain cognitively engaged for longer, becoming emotionally dysregulated less frequently. A common language around metacognition enables learners to share strategies and access a clear point of reference, in times of vulnerability. Some more able learners can find it hard to manage emotions related to underachievement. Metacognition can help children to address both these emotional and cognitive demands.

In order for children to impact their long-term memory and fully embed metacognitive strategies, educators need to teach in many different ways. Metacognition needs to be visually reflected in the learner’s environment, supporting teachers to teach and learners to learn.   

How do we do this at Alfreton Nursery School?

At Alfreton Nursery School we ensure that discourse is littered with practical examples of how conscious thinking can result in deeper understanding. Spontaneous conversations are supported by visual aids around the classroom, enabling teachers and learners to plan and reflect on thinking strategies. Children are empowered to integrate the language of metacognition as they explain their learning and strive for greater understanding.

Adults in school use metacognitive terms when talking freely to each other, exposing children to their natural use. Missed opportunities are openly shared within the teaching team, supporting future developments.

Within enrichment groups, metacognition is a transparent process of learning. Children are given metacognitive strategies at the beginning of enhancement opportunities and encouraged to reflect and evaluate at the end. Whether working indoors or outdoors, with manipulatives or abstract concepts and individually or in a group, metacognition is a vehicle through which all learners can access lesson content.

We use the ‘Thinking Moves’ metacognition framework (you can read more about this here). Creative application of this framework supports the combination of metacognition words, to make strings of thinking strategies. For example, a puppet called FRED helps children to Formulate, Respond, Explain and Divide their learning experiences. A QUEST model helps children to follow a process of Questioning, Using, Explaining, Sizing and Testing.

Metacognition supports children of all abilities, ages and backgrounds, to overcome barriers to learning. Disadvantage is thus reduced.

Moving from intent to implementation

Systems and procedures at Alfreton Nursery School serve to scaffold day to day practice and provide a backdrop of expectations and standards. In order to best serve more able children who are experiencing disadvantage, these frameworks need to be explicit in their inclusivity and flexibility. Just as every policy, plan, assessment, etc will address the needs of all learners – including those who are more able – so all these documents explicitly address how metacognition will support all learners. To ensure that visions move beyond ‘intent’ and are fully implemented, systems need to guide provision through a metacognitive lens.  

Metacognition is woven into all curriculum documents. A systematic and dynamic monitoring system, which tracks the progress and attainment of all learners, ensures that children have equal focus on cognition and emotion, breaking down barriers with conscious intent.

 

At Alfreton Nursery School, those children who are more able and experiencing disadvantage receive a carefully constructed meta-curriculum which scaffolds their journey towards success, in whatever context that may manifest itself. Children learn within an environment where teachers can articulate, demonstrate and inculcate the power of metacognition, enabling children to be the best that they can be.

How is your school empowering and supporting young people to break down potential barriers to learning and achievement? Read more about NACE’s research focus for this academic year, and contact us to share your experiences.

Dr Kirstin Mulholland, Content Specialist for Mathematics at the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), shares a metacognitive strategy she’s found particularly helpful in supporting – and challenging – the thinking of higher-attaining pupils: “the debrief”.

Why is metacognition important?

Research tells us that metacognition and self-regulated learning have the potential to significantly benefit pupils’ academic outcomes. The updated EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit has compiled well over 200 school-based studies that reveal a positive average impact of around seven months progress. But it also recognises that "it can be difficult to realise this impact in practice as such methods require pupils to take greater responsibility for their learning and develop their understanding of what is required to succeed”  .

Approaches to metacognition are often designed to give pupils a repertoire of strategies to choose from, and the skills to select the most suitable strategy for a given learning task. For high prior attaining pupils, this offers constructive and creative opportunities to further develop their knowledge and skills.

How can we develop metacognition in the classroom?

In my own classroom, a metacognitive strategy which I’ve found particularly helpful in supporting – and, crucially, challenging – the thinking of higher-attaining pupils is “the debrief”. The debrief as an effective learning strategy links to Recommendation 1 of the EEF’s Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning Guidance Report (2018), which highlights the importance of encouraging pupils to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning. 

In a debrief, the role of the teacher is to support pupils to engage in “structured reflection”, using questioning to prompt learners to articulate their thinking, and to explicitly identify and evaluate the approaches used. These questions support and encourage pupils to reflect on the success of the strategies they used, consider how these could be used more effectively, and to identify other scenarios in which these could be useful. 

Why does this matter for higher-attaining pupils?

When working in my own primary classroom, I found that encouraging higher-attaining pupils to explicitly consider their learning strategies in this way provides an additional challenge. Initially, many of the pupils I’ve worked with have been reluctant to slow down to consider the strategies they’ve used or “how they know”. Some have been overly focused on speed or always “getting things right” as an indication of success in learning. 

When I first introduced the debrief into my own classroom, common responses from higher-attaining pupils were “I just knew” or “It was in my head”. However, what I also experienced was that, for some of these pupils, because they were used to quickly grasping new concepts as they were introduced, they didn’t always develop the strategies they needed for when learning was more challenging. This meant that, when faced with a task where they didn’t “just know”, some children lacked resilience or the strategies they needed to break into a problem and identify the steps needed to work through this. 

As I incorporated the debrief more and more frequently into my lessons, I saw a significant shift. Through my questioning, I prompted children to reflect on the rationale underpinning the strategies they used. They were also able to hear the explanations given by others, developing their understanding of the range of options available to them. This helped to broaden their repertoire of knowledge and skills about how to be an effective learner.  

How does the debrief work in practice?

Many of the questions we can use during the debrief prompt learners to reflect on the “what” and the “why” of the strategies they employed during a given task. For example, 

• What exactly did you do? Why?
• What worked well? Why?
• What was challenging? Why?
• Is there a better way to…?
• What changes would you make to…? Why?

However, I also love asking pupils much more open questions such as “What have you learned about yourself and your learning?” The responses of the learners I work with have often astounded me! They have encompassed not just their understanding of the specific learning objectives identified for a given lesson, but also demonstrating pupils’ ability to make links across subjects and to prior learning. This has led to wider reflections about their metacognition – strengths or weaknesses specific to them, the tasks they encountered, or the strategies they had used – or their ability to effectively collaborate with others. 

For me, the debrief provides an opportunity for pupils’ learning to really take flight. This is where reflections about learning move beyond the boundaries and limitations of a single lesson, and instead empower learners to consider the implications of this for their future learning. 

For our higher-attaining pupils, this means enabling them to take increasing ownership over their learning, including how to do this ever more effectively. This independence and control is a vital step in becoming resilient, motivated and autonomous learners, which sets them up for even greater success in the future. 

References

• EEF (2021). Metacognition and Self-regulation, Teaching and Learning Toolkit.
• Education Endowment Foundation (2018). Metacognition and Self-regulation: Guidance Report.

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