HPL Characteristics & Attributes

Advanced Cognitive Performance Characteristics (ACPs)-Thinking Skills

There are 20 ACPs, usefully categorised for their implementation within five groupings.

Group One: Meta-Thinking

This first set of four characteristics relate to consciously thinking about thinking. They are the characteristics that help students to be aware of the repertoire of thinking skills that is available to them and also the need for self-awareness in selecting which work best in which circumstances. This creates the intellectual confidence that enables students to tackle even difficult problems.

Group Two: Linking

This section of six characteristics is about linking learning episodes and ‘schema’ (Boswell, 1967). This is the ability to see learning as part of a larger scheme as opposed to a series of single events. Some students are more naturally attracted to thinking in this way and it helps them to make rapid and secure progress in their learning. It often also reduces the amount of time they need to spend revising for example, because their knowledge is more secure. It is also possible to teach or train people to do this.

Group Three: Analysing

This set of three characteristics is about thinking logically and carefully. Advanced performers tend to be careful and logical in their approach, even when being creative.

Group Four: Creating

This set of five characteristics focuses on creative thinking and learning. The objective of the creative characteristics is not to teach creativity as a separate subject but rather to introduce some ideas that are universally thought to characterise creativity and to create the conditions that will nurture creative as well as critical thinking.

Group Five: Realising

Realising refers to the ability to make effective use of the other characteristics in a form that best ensures high performance.

Values, Attitudes and Attributes (VAAs)

The VAAs work in conjunction with the ACPs and together they enable students to progress towards advanced cognitive performance. The VAAs are the learner behaviours that students need to exhibit and further develop our nine key character traits (curiosity, courage, empathy, enthusiasm, gratitude, integrity, resilience, self-belief and self-control). The Department for Education defines character as, ‘A set of personal traits that produce specific moral emotions, inform motivation and guide conduct’. The VAAs create the thinking, caring person-a well-rounded individual able to thrive in the adult world as well as the school setting. They are designed to help students to be both college-ready and employment-ready, but also life ready and well prepared for a successful future.

There are 10 VAAs, usefully categorised for their implementation within three groupings.

Group One: Empathetic

This set of three VAAs looks at the way in which individuals approach working alone and with others to achieve strong outcomes.

Group Two: Agile

This set of four attitudes relates to the desire to learn and being prepared to use multiple approaches in order to achieve good outcomes. They are dispositions that enable students to become more autonomous and to contribute well in school and life.

Group Three: Hard Working

Hard work comprises practice, perseverance and resilience. Concentration and practice are required not just in pursuit of understanding but also in refining or improving. Persistence or the ability to keep practising is also critical, as is the stamina to keep going and the resilience to dig deep even when it seems as if the task is impossible. All these characteristics could be said to be personality based, with some individuals inherently more predisposed to them than others. However, the way in which learning is presented and rewarded can substantially increase willingness to concentrate and persevere.