Putting ‘Critical’ Thinking at the Core of the English Curriculum
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Creative thinking is being tested in schools worldwide, but in England, it’s yet to become a curriculum priority. What could we gain by making it central to curriculum reform?
A small-scale study by the Australian Council for Educational Research (July 2024) explored how creative thinking could be integrated into the English school curriculum.
The paper highlights some of the “main barriers and enablers that schools and teachers face when integrating new skill areas into their existing curriculum. Resource constraints, such as time, financial limitations and insufficient training opportunities for teachers were highlighted as some of the barriers.”
Creative and Critical Thinking definitions
This paper defines ‘creative thinking‘ as:
“The process by which knowledge, intuition and skills are applied in context. Specifically, the exercise of imagination and inquisitiveness, along with the persistence that novel thinking requires.”
Creativity is also defined as:
“The capacity to imagine, inquire and persist in expressing or making something that is novel or individual in its context (Durham Commission, 2019).”
Due to the latest discussions on critical thinking in response to Labour’s plans to revise the current curriculum and place critical thinking front and centre, I was searching for academic research on critical thinking. I came across this one, Putting Creative Thinking at the Core of the English School Curriculum – an exploratory study published by the Australian Council for Education Research (ACER).
Rather than abandoning the paper because it wasn’t ‘on topic’, I thought it was just worth considering the definition of ‘critical thinking.’
Daniel T. Willingham, a cognitive psychologist, defines critical thinking as the ability to “reason effectively and to think logically and analytically” about a subject; not just the acquisition of knowledge but also the skill to apply that knowledge in different contexts, analyse information, make judgements, and solve problems.
It appears that both definitions – by ACER and Willingham – on two different topics are saying the same thing. Without getting too distracted from the paper, I wonder if Australian is a different word for critical thinking? Anyway…
According to PISA, creative thinking is “the way of thinking that leads to the generation of valuable and original ideas.” I find this definition far too vague.
Assessing creative thinking
Teachers across England were encouraged to embed creative thinking skills into Key Stages 2 and 3 over one term, focusing on five core subjects: English, Science, History, Art and design, and Design and technology. Through professional development and ongoing support, teachers tested three methods to assess creative thinking in their classrooms: teacher assessments, pupil portfolios, and pupil self-reports.
The study uses a model of creative thinking developed by the Centre for Real-World (CRL) (Lucas et al., 2013; Lucas, 2016; Lucas and Spencer, 2017), which is now used in more than 30 countries across the world.
Ref: Australian Council for Educational Research (page 9)
The study revealed the potential benefits of nurturing creative thinking within the current National Curriculum, but it did come with its limitations.
Why does creative (critical) thinking matter?
Only last week, spreading misinformation across England caused riots in countless towns and cities. Teaching all of our young people how to think, particularly adults who are still relatively new to using social media is more essential than ever. The rise of artificial intelligence is only going to make it much tougher.
Teachers in the study observed increased engagement, improved teamwork, and boosted confidence among pupils when creative thinking was embedded in lessons. These skills are not just ‘nice-to-haves’—they are crucial for helping young people navigate the complexities of the modern world.
Several years ago, the OECD announced that it would start testing “creativity” in its PISA measures. These results were published in June 2024. Politicians placed so much importance on the literacy and numeracy tables published by the OECD that, hopefully, they might start promoting creativity in our English curriculum when this latter topic starts becoming top of the international and national agenda too.
I haven’t discussed here how the teachers went about assessing creativity. It is explained in the document, and it is not without its limitations for the teachers who took part in the study.
The research concludes
… that some teachers “reported that participating in this study enhanced their relationships with their pupils.”
