This book begins with the introductory chapter, "Don't Think; Just Get on with Your Work," in which the author argues that children are thinkers, but that there are schooling barriers to engaging this thinking. Chapter 1, A Place to Think, considers these barriers in more detail and provides some ideas about how children learn in schools and what factors must be considered if educators are to improve their engagement and promote greater use of these thinking skills. The remainder of the book considers opportunities to move towards greater pupil engagement in primary schools. Chapter 2, Promoting Thinking Skills through Talk, considers the use of discourse and group work to remove the barriers to engagement. Next, chapter 3, Promoting Thinking Skills through Assessment, looks at how assessment, which has a huge influence over all aspects of classroom life including, unsurprisingly, the approaches pupils adopt to their learning, can be used to promote the use of thinking skills. Chapter 4, Promoting Disciplined Thinking Skills through Authentic Activity, describes how schooling structures children's thinking, and how this can be used in positive ways by, for example, helping children to see the world as a mathematician, a poet and so on. It also considers the value of considering the same themes from several different perspectives to enrich learning, including "real-life" contexts of use. Complementing this, chapter 5, Promoting Creativity, considers how children can be encouraged to step outside the boxes which structure their thinking, and to think creatively. Finally, chapter 6, The Thinking School, addresses the issues surrounding the development of a whole school approach to issues of engagement and thinking, that is, to those of developing a thinking school. An acknowledgments section; biographical details; and an index are also included. (Contains 11 endnotes, 10 figures, and 16 tasks.)