Nursery World - The Characteristics of Effective Learning: Thinking Creatively and Critically

How can practitioners best support children in thinking creatively and critically, asks Helen Moylett in the final part of this series.

Siren Films: Putting critical thinking into action when building a path.

The previous three articles in this series have explored the background to the Characteristics of Effective Learning (CoEL) as well as looking at how educators can encourage engagement and motivation through play and active learning. This article investigates ways to support children in thinking creatively and critically.

However, just as the CoEL are connected to, and enmeshed, with each other, so these articles overlap and complement each other and are designed to be read as the quarters of a whole.

Being able to think creatively and critically is built on play and motivation. As Peter Gray (2013) explains, ‘Critical thinking is founded in creativity, and creativity always requires a degree of playfulness. The critical thinker plays with ideas – tries them out, turns them upside down to see what happens, explores their consequences.’

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