Metacognition At Ordsall

At Ordsall we are working hard to teach children metacognitive skills in order to help them to take control of their own learning and develop life long learning behaviours.

So what is metacognition?

Metacognition is defined as ‘learning about learning’ and describes the processes involved when students plan, monitor, evaluate and then make changes to their own learning behaviours.

At Orsdall every class, from Year 1 to Year 6, has a ‘metacognition lesson’ once a week following a program called ReflectED but we also seek to develop metacognitive skills throughout every lesson and embed it in the ethos of the school.

As part of this process, children are encouraged to reflect on their learning using the colour tags below which are displayed throughout school.

At Ordsall Primary School you may hear your child talking about ‘feeling’ a particular colour about tasks that they undertake. We encourage the children to make honest reflections and accept that being red is crucial part of their learning journey.

Within our metacognition learning we also teach children about the role of growth mindset development and the acceptance of making mistakes.

A growth mindset is the belief that their abilities are not set at birth and that they can in fact ‘grow their brains’, learning to do anything that they want to as long as they work hard enough at it. Nothing is out of their reach. By encouraging and teaching children to develop growth mindsets we are helping to increase aspiration. 

If you want to find out a little more about this work please click ReflectEd Learning