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Thinking Skills

Advanced Thinking School Reaccreditation – July 2025

We are delighted to share that in July 2025, Stanley Park Infants' was reaccredited with Advanced Thinking School status for the third time.

Mrs Wheatland worked closely with the leadership team, staff, and wider school community to compile evidence and write a comprehensive report from the school’s perspective. The report was reviewed by the University of Exeter and written by Dr Dave Walters, the link for which is below.

As part of a growing hub of Thinking Schools across the UK, we continue to support others on their journey to developing thinking skills. Mrs Jacobs, our Research and Development Lead, will keep this page updated with our latest developments.

Stanley Park JKS final report - February-2020

Stanley-Park-Infants-School-Accreditation-July 2025

What are Thinking Skills?

Thinking Skills are cognitive processes that we use to solve problems, make different decisions, asking questions, making plans, organising and creating information.

The Approach

"The success of the approach is that schools take a whole-school approach to the teaching of thinking. This means that thinking becomes central and explicit and all teachers and students develop a common thinking language and toolbox.

As students move from lesson to lesson and teacher to teacher they will be using the same tools and strategies as part of a coherent and well-planned approach. This applies to both primary and secondary schools.

Each school will identify and select specific thinking tools which can be used across the curriculum. These tools will develop specific types of thinking and thinking processes. The students will develop an understanding of how they think and be able to articulate how they think. Teachers will talk about thinking with their students."

How do we use them?

Thinking Frames are an integral part of teaching and learning at Stanley Park. Each frame represents a branch of thinking, aligned with the specific skills children are developing. These visual tools are used not only by pupils during learning tasks, but also in whole-class sessions, staff and governors' meetings, and planning discussions. This shared language for learning is deeply embedded in our school community, and we are continually exploring new ways to support each child's metacognition — their understanding of their own thought processes.

Thinking skills are embedded within our school community and is a common language for all children. Please look through our presentations below about how we use Thinking Skills at Stanley Park.

Whole part frame Compare and contrast frame