The world our pupils will be living in in 10 or 20 years will be vastly different to the one we recognise today. In addition to content knowledge, our pupils also need to be taught how to think well so they can become independent, life-long learners.

Cognitive education (teaching thinking) deals with the gathering, elaborating and producing of information. It teaches the HOW of learning. It teaches what good thinking is by promoting the need to be systematic, to use concepts, to recognise characteristics, to be precise, to combine, to relate, to compare, to plan, to hypothesise, to question, to find rules, to apply, to verify, etc. 

In Killowen we have introduced de Bono's 6 Thinking Hats and David Hyerle's Thinking Maps to help improve how our pupils solve problems and also how they show and discuss their thinking.