The Thinking Framework · free to download and print

Give learners the words to show their thinking.

Metacognition, made practical. Thirty-three words in five colours help you plan the thinking a lesson needs, teach it out loud, and check that it landed. Learners start to see how they learn.

Plan a lesson with it, free → Download the framework, free

Who it is for

For schools that want active learners: children who understand how they learn, and have the tools to do it again in any subject.

  • A line drawing of a teacher at a desk with three cards laid out above an open plannerPlanName the thinking a lesson asks for before you teach it.
  • A line drawing of two learners sorting small cards into two groups on a large sheetTeachSay it, map it or build it, so every learner is doing the thinking.
  • A line drawing of a learner reading and underlining, with a small stack of cards beside the bookCheckAsk learners which move they made. The words make it visible.

For the learner

A tricky task becomes four steps.

Long, wordy tasks make learners freeze. The framework shows them how to break one down: name the thinking each part asks for, then take it one move at a time.

It works like an algorithm for any subject, and learners can do it again on their own.

The task · geography, ages 11 to 14

Analyse the effects of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Put the effects in order of importance, reach a conclusion about which is the most serious, and use evidence from the sources to support your claims.

A learner might think

That’s a lot. I don’t know where to start.

Four steps. Now I know where to start.

  1. 1Identify

    Find the effects in the sources and list them.I just find the effects first. Now I understand.

  2. 2Rank

    Put them in order, most important first.I’ve done this before. It’s putting things in order.

  3. 3Hypothesise

    Make a claim about which effect is most serious.My hunch: losing habitats is the worst.

  4. 4Validate

    Back the claim up with evidence from the sources.Source B backs me up. Now it makes sense.

Five colours

Every colour is a question learners ask.

Not levels, and not a ladder to climb. Five questions behind any piece of work, and the words that answer them. Click any word to see what it means and a task you could set tomorrow.

Every card, explained

In the lesson

The skills of learning, made visible.

Reading, writing and making sense of new ideas each rest on a few thinking moves. Name the moves and learners can use them on purpose.

Reading comprehension

They know what they are doing while they read.

Extract Infer Rain falls on the hills all night. Soon the ground is full, so the water runs off the hills into the river. The river rises and spills over its banks, towards the town below. Why might the town flood? The ground is full, so the rain runsstraight into the river. Extract: I pick out what matters. Infer: I read between the lines.

Instead of “read it again”, learners pick out what matters and ask why.

Writing

The thinking is planned before the writing.

Target Vocabulary Conjunctions Water rises by evaporation and condenses into clouds because the air cools, so rain falls. evaporation condenses because so Success criterion Two science words and two joins

The words and the joins are chosen before a sentence is written.

Understanding new ideas

They can say how they came to understand it.

New idea photosynthesis Retrieve Plants need lightand water. We eat food toget energy. Compare Plants make food We eat food energy “I compared it with what I knew.”

Learners can say how they understood it, not only what.

Adaptive teaching

One task. Easier to enter, harder to finish.

Make the same task easier or harder in the moment, depending on how the lesson is going. The thinking word stays the same.

Compare

Compare a plant cell and an animal cell.

Word bank

nucleuscell wallchloroplast

Organiser

Plant cellAnimal cell

Starter

“Both have… but only…”

Criterion

By what you can see in the diagram.

Supports

None added.

Criterion

By the parts each cell has.

Supports

Word bank Organiser Starter

Criterion

By what each part does, and why a plant needs the extra parts.

The task as set: the same word and the same task for every learner.

This is what staff practise in a training session. See the training

One lesson

Plan the thinking. The lesson follows.

Geography, ages 9 to 11. Three thinking words, each with its own route.

The plan

Why do towns and cities grow beside rivers?

I can explain why towns and cities grow beside rivers.

  1. Retrieve
    Say it · two minutes, a partner

    Name a town or city you know that sits on a river. Why might people have chosen to live there? Say it before anything is written.

  2. Categorise
    Map it · a two-column organiser

    Eight cards: fresh water, fish, fertile soil left by floods, boats for trade, a crossing point, water to turn a mill, a bend that is easy to defend, flooding. Sort them.

    By what each one gives people: water, food, safety, a way to travel and trade.
  3. Judge
    Write it · a paragraph

    Bangkok on the Chao Phraya, New Orleans on the Mississippi or London on the Thames: choose one. Was the river worth the risk of flooding? Judge it against the criteria you sorted by.

The word stays; the criterion moves. One sort, two difficulties, the same task for everyone.

Each move has a route: say it, map it, then write it.

A teacher's flip chart headed Lesson 1: five Thinking Framework cards, Retrieve, Identify, Explain, Categorise and Extract, with the teacher's handwritten questions in clouds beside them: what do you know about AI, how does it work, how many types are there
A teacher’s own first lesson on artificial intelligence, planned in the cards during a session in Quebec. The questions beside each card are hers.

Where it lives

On the wall, in the plan, in their hands.

Free for every classroom to download and print. Here is where it shows up.

  • The Thinking Framework on one page: five coloured families and their thirty-three thinking words

    On the wall

    The poster

    All thirty-three words, colour by colour, for a classroom or a planning wall. One page, PDF.

    Download the framework, free →

  • In the plan

    The lesson planner

    Type a topic and a year group. The app names the thinking and builds the lesson around it.

    Plan a lesson, free →
  • A line drawing of a learner building a sentence with three chunky blocks

    In their hands

    Cards, organisers and blocks

    A printable A4 framework for every table, graphic organisers for each thinking move, and Writer’s Block for building it.

    Print the A4 framework →

  • In the staff room

    Training

    A hands-on session where your staff rethink a unit they already teach.

    See the training →

In schools

Where the words are already on the walls.

Plans and displays from schools in five countries, photographed where the teachers made them.

  • A hand-drawn plan headed EYFS Owl Babies: six lessons arranged around the story, from characters and setting to acting out and innovating the character, with Identify, Hypothesise, Sequence, Explain and Adjectives cards placed beside each lesson
    Six early years lessons on Owl Babies, planned card by card.British International School of Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia. An earlier print of the cards.
  • A history plan asking how the arrival of Europeans changed Iroquoian society, with Retrieve, Identify and Categorise cards in a column, and Compare, Connect, Explain, Hypothesise, Infer and Designate cards beside handwritten questions
    A history unit on Iroquoian society, from Retrieve to Hypothesise.Teachers in Quebec, Canada
  • A teacher points a pen at a wall plan on healthy living written in Bulgarian, with Thinking Framework cards translated into Bulgarian stuck around it and the framework poster taped up beside it
    A healthy living plan written in Bulgarian, with the cards translated.Teachers in Bulgaria
  • A hand-drawn plan headed Health and Myself, Foundation Learning, with Elaborate, Sequence, Eliminate, Rank, Categorise, Adjectives and Amplify cards beside tasks such as sort the facts from the myths and the most important things to stay healthy
    Health and Myself, planned for the youngest learners.A cluster of schools in Wales
  • A maths plan on exponents written in Afrikaans, with worked examples of powers and Hypothesise, Elaborate, Identify, Compare, Arrange, Sequence, Infer, Generalise, Validate and Explain cards placed around it
    A maths lesson on exponents, planned in Afrikaans.Teachers in South Africa. An earlier print of the cards.
  • Four teachers at a table in a sports hall, one pointing at a spread of coloured Thinking Framework cards while they plan an athletics unit on a large sheet of paper
    Four teachers sort the cards to plan an athletics unit.A staff session with teachers
  • Seen from behind, a teacher writes on a large planning sheet with a highlighter, groups of Thinking Framework cards circled in green, blue, red and yellow with the task written beside each group
    A teacher maps a unit, writing the task beside each card.A staff session in Cape Town, South Africa

Your school’s priorities

Whatever your school is working on this year.

It does not replace your priority. It gives it a shared language.

  • Metacognition

    Learners name the thinking they are doing.

    RetrieveExplainJudge
  • Oracy

    Every learner has the words to join in, in Say It talk routines.

    ExplainElaborate
  • Critical thinking

    Learners compare and judge, with reasons.

    CompareJudgeValidate
  • Formative assessment

    The thinking word becomes the check.

    VerifyExplain
  • Reading

    Learners pick out, order and read between the lines.

    ExtractSequenceInfer
  • Independent learners

    Learners choose the next move themselves.

    IdentifyHypothesise

Start with five words.

Pick one word from each colour. Within a few weeks the class uses them without being asked.

RetrieveCategoriseExplainTarget VocabularyJudge

Trial it in one year group or one department first.

A long table of teachers leaning over a large sheet of paper, red Thinking Framework cards spread across the table, one teacher pointing at the plan
A department plans a unit with the cards, one family at a time. British International School of Al Khobar.

The research

Built on the evidence for metacognition.

The Education Endowment Foundation asks teachers to teach learning strategies explicitly and give learners the language to talk about them. The framework is that language.

It was the backbone of Make It Count, the University of East Anglia’s Year 7 programme. Across four schools, the share of learners answering “I can” on the skills statements rose from 52% to 83% (23 learners surveyed, 2024/25). It is a small study, so the evaluators call the result indicative. There is no Key Stage 4 or IB outcome data yet.

The Structural Learning platform

It all comes to life on the platform.

The Thinking Framework is built into the lesson planner, so every lesson starts from the thinking your learners need to do.

Plan a lesson free

Free to start.

Professional learning

Roll up your sleeves and rethink a lesson.

Your staff take a unit they already teach, name the thinking it asks for, and rebuild it with the cards. Everyone leaves with a lesson for next week. A twilight, a half day or an INSET day, in school or online.

Book a 20-minute conversation with Paul → What a session covers
Teachers at a staff session lay Thinking Framework cards in a row to plan a lesson: Compare, Sequence, Categorise, Explain, Judge
A Thinking Framework staff session.
A lesson planned as a sequence of Thinking Framework cards on a large sheet, with arrows drawn between them
From a real staff session: a lesson rebuilt as a sequence of cards.

A training programme

One focus for the whole staff.

Each focus stands on its own, so a school can start with the one it needs. Together they make a whole-school programme for primary and secondary, so you can add the others when you are ready.

  1. The Thinking FrameworkThe Thinking Framework

    A shared language for thinking, for every teacher in the room.

    This focus

  2. Map ItMap It

    Graphic organisers that make learners' thinking visible on the page.

    This focus

  3. Say ItSay It

    Oracy: talk routines that give every learner a voice.

    This focus

  4. Build ItBuild It

    Learners build sentences and ideas with Writer's Block, then write them.

    This focus

The next step

Talk it through with Paul.

Twenty minutes on a Google Meet. Tell me what your school is working on and I will say how the framework would sit inside it, or whether you can do it without me.

Talk it through

Pick a time that suits you. I answer messages myself, by email.

Book a 20-minute conversation with Paul →
or

Email me directly
paul@structural-learning.com

Or send three quick questions