Critical and Creative Thinking
PRINT THIS PAGECurriculum
Foundation Level A
Foundation Level B
Foundation Level C
Foundation Level D
Foundation to Level 2
Levels 3 and 4
Levels 5 and 6
Levels 7 and 8
Levels 9 and 10
By the end of Foundation Level A, students respond to their environment and use their senses to explore the characteristics of objects and effects of actions.
They respond to familiar questions about their immediate experiences, routines and activities.
They practise problem-solving involving cause and effect and repetition.
By the end of Foundation Level B, students interact with their environment by using their senses, and they recognise familiar objects and actions and start to associate actions with outcomes.
Students respond to closed questions in familiar routines and activities.
They respond to objects and events and they experiment with actions and activities to develop choice-making and problem-solving skills.
By the end of Foundation Level C, students actively engage with their environment and identify the cause of an outcome.
They use questioning to build their knowledge and understanding of their environment and answer questions about familiar activities or topics.
Students generate ideas based on their experiences and make choices in structured situations.
They use known strategies to solve single-step problems and make observations.
By the end of Foundation Level D, students experiment and use prior knowledge to generate new ideas and predict outcomes.
They ask questions to obtain additional information and can describe the actions they have taken to achieve an outcome.
They use a range of strategies to solve multi-step problems, choosing a strategy to apply and describing their observations.
Students provide feedback on their learning.
By the end of Level 2, students construct and use questions with a range of stems. They generate ideas and possibilities that are new to them and identify the strategy used. They describe personal responses to ideas and possibilities and identify how these influenced their thinking.
Students identify and use words that show reasons and conclusions and identify suitable examples to support claims when reasoning. They practise and use a range of simple general learning...
By the end of Level 4, students identify, construct and use open and closed questions for different purposes. They describe and use simple strategies to generate and evaluate new ideas and possibilities, reflecting on the effect of pre-established preferences.
Students identify a conclusion justified by a range of reasons, and structure and communicate a conclusion justified by a range of reasons. They use evidence, values, criteria and ‘if-then’ thinking to support their reasoning and identify errors in examples of ‘if-then’...
By the end of Level 6, students identify, construct and use questions to focus or expand their thinking. They explain and use a range of strategies to generate and evaluate new ideas and possibilities, reflecting on the importance of setting aside preconceptions.
Students identify an argument that uses sub-arguments that lead to a main conclusion. They structure and communicate an argument that uses sub-arguments that lead to a main conclusion. They use criteria and consider...
By the end of Level 8, students construct and use main questions and sub-questions for different purposes. They select, use and reflect on a range of strategies to generate new ideas and possibilities, they suspend judgement to support generating and evaluating alternative ideas and possibilities and they reflect on the importance of suspending judgement.
Students identify, structure and communicate a conclusion and a justification for the conclusion that involves analysis and evaluation of competing claims and grounds for these claims.
By the end of Level 10, students construct, use and adapt questions to support thinking in different contexts. They select, justify, use and reflect on a range of strategies to generate new ideas and possibilities and critically reflect on suspension of judgement when generating and evaluating alternative ideas and possibilities from different perspectives.
Students analyse and critically reflect on the structure, clarity, consistency and coherence of a conclusion and its justification in different contexts. They identify the qualities required when...