Critical thinking in schools: Can it be taught – and how?

In August, education secretary Bridget Phillipson proposed that children in England should be taught to identify extremist content and misinformation online.

This would be part of a broader effort to embed “critical thinking” throughout the curriculum. The aim is to counteract what she referred to as "putrid conspiracy theories" (see Cutteridge, 2024).

This idea faced scepticism from educational influencers, such as science teacher Adam Boxer, who stated on X: "Reasonably confident that beyond a few very basic heuristics this isn't possible."

There were also more general comments on critical thinking from figures like ResearchED founder Tom Bennett, who remarked, also on X: "A few assemblies on fake news won’t cut it. The best way to nurture generations of informed critical thinkers is by teaching them acres of knowledge-rich domain content and how reasoning works. Critical thinking isn’t a skill separate from these things; it is composed of them."