Dialogue and Deep Thinking

At Britannia, our aim is for all children to become strong and effective communicators. Dialogue and deep thinking are woven throughout the curriculum.

Oracy is encouraged in everything we do from EYFS right through to Yr6. Children are taught to structure their thoughts in a way that make sense to others and taught the vocabulary they need to say precisely what they want to say.

To support our children, we use 4Cs. These help us to think in different ways, become better listeners and articulate our thoughts concisely.

The 4Cs are explained below.

Caring Thinkers demonstrate a desire to make the world a better place with their suggestions and ideas. They can demonstrate a strong degree of empathy with others.

Collaborative Thinkers can listen intently to the ideas of others and can respond well and build upon previous comments and opinions, even if they differ from their own.

Creative Thinkers demonstrate a high degree of originality within their suggestions and ideas. They often think ‘out of the box’ and can find radical and perceptive solutions to some of the most baffling of problems.

Critical Thinkers are not afraid to express disagreement with conventional thinking. They can politely and assertively argue from very different viewpoints to others and are able to articulate exactly why they disagree with the views of others and can pinpoint specifically where they feel they differ from the agreed viewpoint.

We promote opportunities for discussions and debates in all curriculum areas. It is our aim that children learn the art of forming deep questions and can discuss and debate with insight and confidence, participating in challenging discussions across subjects.

At Britannia, metacognition and self-regulation approaches to teaching support our pupils to think about their own learning more explicitly by teaching them specific strategies for planning, monitoring and evaluating their learning. It is taught across all curriculum subjects and is taught systematically through a series of moves called ‘Thinking Moves’. Thinking Moves is a list of the 26 most useful moves our brain can do, and they have been arranged in an A-Z. This A-Z is a special list of 26 things you can do with your brain/ mind.

The children are introduced to the 26 moves systematically. This happens through assemblies and in classrooms. The children learn a symbol and an action that represent each move. They also carry out a series of activities to help deepen their understanding of how the move works. These are then referred to through all curriculum subjects and used by the children to plan their thinking. The Thinking Moves are displayed in all classrooms across the school for the children and teachers to refer to.