Posted 12 March 2025

Natalie Aldridge and Sophie Elizabeth Smith discuss the findings from Go Higher West Yorkshire’s latest ‘Think and Go Higher’ impact report and the implications for education and the workplace. 

“Let’s raise the importance of speaking skills – ‘oracy’ as academics call it. Because these skills are absolutely critical for our children’s future success. First and foremost – for academic attainment. Talking through your ideas before putting them on the page, improves writing. Structured classroom discussion – deepens thinking. But it’s not just a skill for learning, it’s also a skill for life.” (1) 

These are the words of Sir Keir Starmer, then the leader of the opposition, making a Labour Party speech in 2023. His words highlight the pertinency of designing and evaluating innovative, skill-based strategies to develop academic ability in the school classroom. This is precisely what Go Higher West Yorkshire’s ‘Think and Go Higher’ programme seeks to achieve; it is designed to support Year 8, 9 and 10 learners’ academic ability by working on two interrelated skill areas: cognition and communication. To do this, the programme utilises a non-subject-specific, metacognitive approach to increasing skills and provides engaging opportunities for learners to practice analysing and collaborating.  

Our latest impact report presents an exciting insight into what can be achieved with this type of approach. Most strikingly, analysis of survey responses before and after the programme shows statistically significant impact across every measure, all of which relate to either cognition, metacognition or communication-based outcomes. This learner perhaps puts it best: 

“It helps you get your point across, but also understand other people’s opinions.” 

This fundamental finding adds weight to existing evidence of the impact of metacognitive approaches on raising attainment in schools. Increased metacognition and communication skills are both associated with increased attainment (2). The Education Endowment Foundation has found metacognition and self-regulated learning to be a particularly ‘high impact, low cost’ approach to achieving this outcome (3). Indeed, as it is delivered collaboratively on behalf of 13 higher education providers as part of Uni Connect, the ‘Think and Go Higher’ programme represents especially good value for money.  

Further findings present statistically significant variations in the way impact is experienced by different groups of learners, notably between broad ethnicity groups. While this needs further exploration, it has potential implications for the appropriate selection of learners for support, where capacity is limited. From talking to learners, we also identified interesting themes about academic motivation (linked to experiencing HE settings) and learner empathy (linked to debating and presenting). This enables us to infer that an engaging, enriching, experiential approach to metacognition programmes has broader than anticipated impact on learners’ cognitive, social and emotional skills. 

These ‘soft’ skills are highly valued in the workplace, with communication and problem-solving skills topping the list of those desired by employers (4). With a growing recognition that these skills are crucial for preparing young people to transition into the workplace (5), programmes such as ‘Think and Go Higher’ are ideally placed to support schools with this mission. The DfE curriculum review, due to present interim recommendations in the Spring of 2025, plans to deliver a national curriculum which: 

‘…ensures children and young people leave compulsory education ready for life and ready for work, building the knowledge, skills and attributes young people need to thrive’ (6)

There is, then, no better time to embrace and prioritise creative, metacognitive approaches to equipping young people with the skills they undoubtedly need to succeed in education and work, and to make all the decisions that come in between.  

Read the full report or one page summary 

Sign up for the online evidence briefing for strategic leaders 

References 

1. Starmer, K. 2023. Keir Starmer unveils Labour’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity at every stage. [online]. Accessed 5th March 2025. Available from: https://labour.org.uk/updates/press-releases/keir-starmer-unveils-labours-mission-to-break-down-barriers-to-opportunity-at-every-stage/  

1. Hattie J, Biggs J, Purdie N. Effects of Learning Skills Interventions on Student Learning: A Meta-Analysis. Rev Educ Res. 1996 Jun 1;66(2):99–136. 

1. Quigley, A, Muijs, D, Stringer, E. 2021. Metacognition and self-regulated learning: Guidance report [online]. Accessed 2025 28th Jan 2025. Available from: https://d2tic4wvo1iusb.cloudfront.net/production/eef-guidance-reports/metacognition/EEF_Metacognition_and_self-regulated_learning.pdf?v=1737997679  

1. FE News. 2023. Survey reveals the top 10 in-demand soft skills for today’s evolving workplace. 30th August. [online]. Accessed 5th March 2025. Available from: https://www.fenews.co.uk/skills/survey-reveals-the-top-10-in-demand-soft-skills-for-todays-evolving-workplace/ 

1. CIPD. (2022) Employer views on skills policy in the UK. [online]. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Accessed 5th March 2025. Available from: https://www.cipd.org/globalassets/media/knowledge/knowledge-hub/reports/employer-skills-survey-1_tcm18-110268.pdf 

1. Dept. for Education. 2025. Curriculum and assessment review. [online]. Accessed 5th March 2025. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/curriculum-and-assessment-review