St Mary's School Calne

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Critical Thinking

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Socrates'The unexamined life is not worth living.' - Socrates 

Critical Thinking is a relatively new subject at St Mary’s but it opens up a tradition of philosophical and rational thinking dating back to the Greek tradition of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle. It engenders a habit of not taking things at face value which is very important for both A Level and University study.

Fourth Form and LV Form

In the Fourth and LV Form (years 7, 8, 9 and 10) girls look at topics as diverse as a study of Utilitarianism and Situation Ethics, responses to moral dilemmas, environmental issues, animal rights, the dialogues of Plato and the debate between science and religion. As you can imagine each of these topics allows for plenty of debate, discussion and disagreement. Critical Thinking encourages the girls to back up their views by using reason.

UV and LIV Form

In UV and LVI Forms (years 11 and 12) we prepare girls for the AS Critical Thinking examination. Unit 1 concerns the Credibility of Evidence. Using a variety of objective criterion we judge how convincing both individual and source based evidence are in a range of different contexts. We try and assess whether these sources are neutral or biased, whether there is a vested interest to lie or tell the truth and decide if the sources are corroborated by others

Critical Thinking Skills

Overall in Critical Thinking, girls should be considering different arguments and the way in which people show that their case is more convincing than someone else’s. They will learn to look at newspaper articles and political debates and be able to realise why they contain flawed arguments. In addition they should be able to produce more persuasive arguments of their own. Critical Thinking should help them with their further studies, future career and with university entrance.

Critical Thinking is implicit in many curriculum areas but by making it explicit this enables girls to reflect more readily on the intellectual ideas they produce. Critical Thinking is designed to help them reach their potential.