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Why settle for ordinary, when you can have extraordinary?
The Got-A-Head®? team has devised a wide range of tools, techniques and strategies to help people “think better, do better, feel better”. They are straightforward, easy to learn and use, and extremely flexible.
Collectively, we call them the Thinking Toolkit.
The main elements, which can be used independently, or in combination, are:
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the FORGET-ME-NOTS™
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there are other elements still in development. Watch this space!
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The Thinking Toolkit can be used in a wide range of settings. It could be a domestic one with a child doing homework, or a family planning a holiday. Or, an educational setting with learners making the most of their education from mid-primary all the way through to further education and beyond. It can just as easily be used in a business environment, where it can be pressed into service at every level from the shop floor through to highest management in order to maximise creativity and innovation within a company to improve productivity, devise new products or find new markets.
REaLLY?™
The REaLLY?™ strategy reminds you to analyse the question or task you have been given and plan your answer before starting. It gets you to identify the exact requirements of what you must do, work out what essential language (key words) will signpost where you might find the answer(s) and note any specific locations that have been given.
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It reinforces the need to check you have understood what you are looking for before putting pen to paper, as well as double-checking you have included everything that is required in your plan, and then making sure you have included it in your actual answer. It’s also a reminder to hone your work as much as you can before handing it in.
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The planning part of REaLLY?™ will vary according to the task or question, but we recommend you use other components from the Thinking Toolkit such as Forget-Me-Nots™ or QWERTY® to help you devise the best possible answer to maximise your results.
Forget-Me-Nots™
Forget-Me-Nots™ are tools you can use to spice up your thinking. You can start simply, using individual Forget-Me-Nots™ to enhance your ideas and the delivery of them, in the way a little bit of salt brings out the flavour of a dish. As you become more familiar with the Forget-Me-Nots™, and how to use them, you can start combining them into a creative curry adding heat, depth and richness to your ideas. Using Forget-Me-Nots™ helps you turn plain bread and butter into an expansive banquet.
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We have organised the Forget-Me-Nots™ into different categories to make it clear what sort of job they do. There is more information about the Farmer, Pioneer, Scientist, Judge and Coach families on the Forget-Me-Nots™ page, in our video introduction to them, as well as in related resources available from our Emporium.
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​One of the real strengths of Forget-Me-Nots™ is as a communicative tool. They allow you to share your thinking process and provide easy and recognisable strategies to adopt when working with others.
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Many of our Forget-Me-Nots combine well with our QWERTY® staged thinking technique.
"There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns."
Edward de Bono
QWERTY®
QWERTY® is a staged thinking technique that helps creativity blossom. Whether you want to think about practical tasks, design, homework, innovation, or flights of fancy, QWERTY® can help you do it better. It provides support and structure so you can do your best work, either as an individual or as part of a team.
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Like the Forget-Me-Nots, there isn’t one single way to use QWERTY®. It’s a flexible technique that can adapt to your way of working, and the job you have to do. It can lend you support and inspiration from the simplest task to incredibly complex projects. It can be used in different ways:
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Quick QWERTY® – you would use this approach for a simple task that could benefit from an extra bit of oomph
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QWERTY® – the standard QWERTY® is for bigger tasks or projects, where there are a lot of different things to think about
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The QWERTY® Hub – sometimes you have to balance design with content, which is where the Hub approach comes into its own.
Wherever your task falls on the spectrum of complexity, QWERTY® can provide the scaffolding you need to get the job done well, efficiently and in an interesting way.
Story Spell™
Story Spell™ is a magic answer to poor spelling.
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Story Spell™ is a completely different way to help your spelling. It doesn’t use phonics or spelling rules. Story Spell™ works by using menmonic encoding techniques to strengthen your ability to remember the sequences of letters you need to know to spell a given word.
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That all sounds very complicated; but isn’t. Actually, it’s as easy as “A is for Apple”.​
Story Spell™ provides you with a cast of ‘letter characters’, such as the aforementioned ‘apple’. These stand in for letters and letter combinations. If you have a word you cannot remember how to spell, you look at your problem letters and note down their equivalent letter character. You then create a story where the characters appear in the same order that their letters appear in the word. We help you construct the story with tips and suggestions and using menmonic features that will help you remember the story precisely, and recall it exactly when you need to spell your problem word. To spell the word correctly, you just recall your story and, abracadabra, you can now spell!