Metacognition

Research into metacognition has shown that  the effective use of cognitive processes is a  fundamental part of learning. Our vision is for our children to become  independent, creative and collaborative learners. We have therefore written a progression document that specifies the learning skills that will be introduced for these key metacognitive strands and teachers use these as they plan learning enquiries.

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To enable our children to become expert learners, metacognition is explicitly taught alongside  knowledge. This gives children an awareness of  these cognitive processes and develops their understanding of how to monitor and adapt them,  enabling them to make better progress.

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These cognitive processes include memory and  attention, the activation of prior knowledge, and  the use of cognitive strategies to solve a problem  or complete a task. Our thinking tools allow learners to self manage their learning, these tools help pupils to organise, analyse and remember knowledge. For a learner to ensure that they are making the best use of these basic cognitive  processes, they need to have an awareness and an  ability to monitor and adapt them.

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Reflection is a fundamental part of the plan-monitor-evaluate process. Encouraging learners to  self-question throughout the process will support  this reflection. We recognise that reflection is a  shared process and that learner’s learning, when  done with peers as part of a collaborative process,  is powerful, deep and meaningful. We have therefore written reflective questions for all year groups and pupils use these to continually reflect on the 'how' of their learning alongside the 'what' of learning