In addition to the three or four subjects you choose, all Lower Sixth formers at Cranleigh take either an extra course in Critical Thinking or a course of lectures on a variety of topics. You are asked to choose after a presentation made to you at the start of your Lower Sixth year.
Critical Thinking can lead to an AS Level qualification taken at the end of the Lower Sixth year. Such a qualification provides extra evidence of your academic potential and achievement when a university application is submitted at the start of the Upper Sixth year, as well as promoting a flexibility of mind and approach which adds to the quality of argument, thought and analysis achieved in your main subject areas. The course aims to develop your abilities in examining and evaluating reasoning, recognising and analysing the assumptions upon which an argument is based, and achieving lucidity and focus in the presentation of a written argument for a variety of different audiences.
At Cranleigh, just as in society at large, there are strong commitments to the value of the non-violent resolution of conflict, to tolerance and to democracy. It is, we assume, better to reason and negotiate than to resort to confrontation, better to base our behaviour on rationality and principle than on unbridled self-interest, and better to hear and be heard, whatever differences of perspective we find we have with those around us. Critical Thinking seeks to reinforce these values as well as providing you with practice in a number of skills which will be important at university and in the world of work.
The course of lectures is delivered in-house by several of our teaching staff, who take the opportunity to articulate their own eclectic interests often outside their subject specialism. Topics this year have included “Modern Art is Rubbish”, “Philosophy and the Media”, “Explosions and Destruction” and “A Short History of Language”.
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