What is Enquiring Minds?
Enquiring Minds is...
a response to the challenges schools face in the task of preparing children for a future characterised by rapid social, technological and cultural change.
Enquiring Minds is...
a distinctive approach to teaching and learning which takes seriously the knowledge, ideas, interests and skills that students bring into schools.
Enquiring Minds is...
a set of principles to underpin relationships between adults and children in schools and classrooms, which see children taking increasing responsibility for determining the content and purpose of their learning.
Enquiring Minds is...
a set of print and digital tools to support teachers and school leaders to implement, adapt and explore Enquiring Minds approaches.
Enquiring Minds is...
a three-year programme of research testing these approaches, principles and resources in UK schools.
Enquiring Minds aims to support students to be...
- inquisitive and curious about things that they experience in their everyday lives
- able to pose problems, ask questions, and recognise issues that they would like to explore
- able to develop an understanding that all knowledge changes over time as people challenge, shape and contribute to it
- confident that they too can challenge, shape and contribute to knowledge
- aware that there are always multiple perspectives for looking at, analysing and understanding things
- able to propose solutions to problems and questions, and to know how to pursue these solutions.
Enquiring Minds is not...
- a new name for thinking skills or learning to learn approaches
- a return to the child-centred permissive education of the 1970s
- a special programme for gifted and talented or disaffected children.
If you are still interested… read on.
Download the Enquiring Minds guide