Creating 21st Century Learners


Primary students at Roleystone Community College from Year 1 through to Year 6 will further develop their thinking skills as part of the specialist program Critical and Creative Thinking / Design and Technology.

For some the term ‘Critical and Creative Thinking’ may be unfamiliar, however these skills are essential in preparing students for an ever-changing world.

Responding to the challenges of the twenty-first century – with its complex environmental, social and economic pressures – requires young people to be creative, innovative, enterprising and adaptable with the motivation, confidence and skills to use critical and creative thinking purposefully.

Critical and creative thinking involves students thinking broadly and deeply using skills, behaviours and dispositions such as reason, logic, resourcefulness, imagination and innovation both within school and in their lives beyond school.

In the Australian Curriculum, students develop capability in critical and creative thinking as they learn to generate and evaluate knowledge, clarify concepts and ideas, seek possibilities, consider alternatives and solve problems.

Though the two are not interchangeable, they are strongly linked, bringing complementary dimensions to thinking and learning. Developing these skills to support the Design and Technology process encourages our students to become more confident and autonomous problem-solvers and thinkers.

We are looking forward to sharing our inquiry learning, ideas and innovations with you throughout the year.

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Where every student is capable of successful learning

What is Creative Thinking?

Creative thinking involves students learning to generate and apply new ideas in specific contexts, seeing existing situations in a new way, identifying alternative explanations and seeing or making new links that generate a positive outcome.

Examples of creative thinking skills are fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration.

What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking involves students learning to develop an argument, use evidence in support of that argument, draw reasoned conclusions and use information to solve problems.

Examples of critical thinking skills are interpreting, analysing, evaluating, explaining, sequencing, reasoning, comparing, questioning, inferring, hypothesising, appraising, testing and generalising.