Rethinking Learning: Why Children Need More Than Academics to Thrive

By Kelly Hutton

Our children require so much more than academic knowledge...

Every day, children are asked to complete tasks that require planning, organisation, flexible thinking, emotional regulation, and sustained attention. Yet these skills, the very foundation of learning, are rarely explicitly taught.

Instead, we "assume" children will simply absorb them through exposure. But in most classrooms, learning is still heavily teacher-led: adults choose the tasks, set the pace, define the outcomes, and direct every step. Even in secondary schools, students are given remarkably little autonomy over how they learn, let alone what they learn. In a primary setting, where executive function skills developing most rapidly, opportunities for children to practise decision-making, self-monitoring, and independent planning are even more limited.

The research across psychology, neuroscience and education tells us something different: executive function skills do not magically develop; they must be modelled, practised, and strengthened through structured, meaningful experiences. When children are rarely allowed to initiate, design, or manage their own learning, where is the opportunity for these skills to flourish?

This is where new approaches to learning really need to come in. "My Life Projects", for example, is an approach which guides children through carefully scaffolded, interest-led projects, helping them to build the cognitive and emotional skills that academic learning alone cannot provide.

Executive Function Skills: Why Do They Matter?

Executive functions are the brain's "control centre", the skills that help children to plan, organise, remember, shift thinking, manage impulses, and regulate emotions.

Research shows that:

• Impulse control, inhibition, and self-regulation develop gradually across childhood and adolescence, and are strongly linked to later wellbeing, academic success, and social functioning (Hammond et al., 2012; Pulkkinen, 1996).

• Cognitive flexibility, which is the ability to shift perspective, adapt to new rules, and generate new solutions, is a key predictor of creativity, problem-solving, and academic achievement (Ionescu, 2012; Aran Filippetti & Krumm, 2020).

• Self-management and self-monitoring interventions significantly improve task completion, independence, and behaviour regulation, especially for neurodivergent learners (Carnett et al., 2025; McKenna et al., 2023).

And yet, we rarely teach these skills directly, rarely dedicate consistent, protected time to allow children to repeatedly practise these skills. Instead, children are expected to use executive functions long before they have developed them... I really believe this needs to change.

The Problem: Traditional Learning Misses the Skills Children Need Most

In the classroom, children are often asked to:

• plan extended pieces of work

• organise materials

• managed deadlines

• switch between tasks

• remember instructions

• regulate frustration

• adapt when things go wrong

All of these are executive function tasks, not academic ones, and yet we routinely expect children to perform them without modelling, scaffolding, dedicated, consistent protected time to practise, or any real autonomy over their learning. When these supports are missing, the expectation that children should know how to do these things isn't just unrealistic, it's profoundly unfair.

And when children struggle, we often see it get labelled as:

• "avoidance"

• "poor motivation"

• "behaviour"

• "not listening"

• "not trying hard enough"

Often, in reality, many children haven't been taught the cognitive processes required to succeed, particularly through methods which make the development of these skills relevant to their motivational needs when they are young.

Research is telling us that:

• Executive functioning skills develop unevenly and require repeated, structured practice (Hammond et al., 2012; Buttelmann & Karbach, 2017).

• Children with weaker EF skills are more likely to experience academic difficulties, behavioural challenges, and emotional dysregulation (Pulkkinen, 1996; White et al., 1994) and therefore probably need additional time, support and opportunity to practise these skills when not under high pressure or high stakes situations.

• The learning environment strongly influences EF development; children need explicit modelling, scaffolding, and opportunities to practise (Kopp, 1989; Olson et al, 1990).

This is where project-based, child-led learning can really be transformative.

Building the Skills Often Overlooked

"My Life Projects" is an approach which is designed to strengthen the core executive function skills that children rely on for independence, resilience, and emotional regulation.

It does this through a repeatable process of:

• Choose: Children explore interests, group ideas, and narrow them down into a meaningful project question, building decision-making, prioritisation, and flexible thinking.

• Define: They articulate what they want to create or show, developing clarity, goal-setting, and backwards planning

• Plan: They then break the project into steps, sequence tasks, create timelines, and anticipate challenges, strengthening organisation, working memory and problem-solving skills.

• Implement: They complete the tasks they set themselves, adapt the plans, and reflect weekly, practising sustained attention, self-monitoring, and emotional regulation.

• Share and reflect: They present their work, evaluate what helped them succeed, and carry strategies forward, building metacognition and confidence.

This mirrors what research tells us about how executive functions develop:

• EF skills strengthen through structured, repeated practice (Hammond et al., 2012), so they cannot just be a "one-off" project - it needs to be a repeated process over multiple projects.

• Cognitive flexibility emerges through the interaction of cognitive mechanisms and context (Ionescu, 2012)

• Self-management improves when children are taught self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and self-reinforcement (Carnett et al., 2025).

• Children learn best when they can apply skills in meaningful, real-world contexts (Mitra & Crawley, 2014).

Parents and Professionals...

Whether you are a parent, educator, SENCO, EP, or therapist, the message is the same:

Children cannot thrive academically unless we teach them the skills that make learning possible.

Executive function skills are not "extras" but are essential for deep learning to occur.

They underpin:

• emotional wellbeing

• behaviour regulation

• academic achievement

• independence

• resilience

• creativity

• problem-solving

• social relationships

And they are teachable if we create environments which prioritise them.

A Call to Rethink How We Teach

If every child..

• Knew how to plan a project

• Break tasks down into manageable steps

• Understood how to monitor their progress

• Could adapt when things went wrong

• Felt confident to make decisions

• Could regulate frustration

• Had the tools to learn independently

The impact would be massive for that child. Approaches like "My Life Projects" show us that this is possible when we shift from teaching content to teaching how to learn.

I believe that it is well overdue, the time to rethink our assumptions about learning and to give children the cognitive tools they need to thrive in school, at home and in life. These skills need to be nurtured just as intentionally as phonics, grammar, and maths, and equally, if not more, essential, because without strong executive function foundations, academic learning simply cannot take hold in a meaningful or lasting way.

If our curriculum truly aims to prepare children for lifelong learning, how intentionally does it nurture the executive function skills they need to thrive?

• Strongly supports
• Somewhat supports
• Minimally Supports
• Does not support at all

References

Arán Filippetti, V., & Krumm, G. (2020). A hierarchical model of cognitive flexibility in children. Child Neuropsychology, 26(6), 770–800.

Buttelmann, F., & Karbach, J. (2017). Development and plasticity of cognitive flexibility in early and middle childhood. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1040.

Carnett, A., Kennedy, S., & Gardner, S. (2025). Self-Management Interventions. In: Lifespan Treatment for Autistic Individuals. Oxford University Press.

Graziano, W. et al. (1987). Self-monitoring in children: A differential approach to social development. Developmental Psychology, 23(4), 571–576.

Hammond, C. J., Potenza, M. N., & Mayes, L. C. (2012). Development of impulse control, inhibition, and self-regulatory behaviors across the lifespan. In: The Oxford Handbook of Developmental Psychology.

Ionescu, T. (2012). Exploring the nature of cognitive flexibility. New Ideas in Psychology, 30, 190–200.

McKenna, K. et al. (2023). Self-monitoring with goal-setting: Decreasing disruptive behavior in children with ADHD. Psychology in the Schools, 60, 5167–5188.

Mitra, S., & Crawley, E. (2014). Effectiveness of self-organised learning by children: Gateshead experiments. Journal of Education and Human Development, 3(3), 79–88.

Olson, S. L., Bates, J. E., & Bayles, K. (1990). Early antecedents of childhood impulsivity. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 18, 317–334.

Pulkkinen, L. (1996). Impulse control in children. Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, 7(2), 228–233.

White, J. L. et al. (1994). Measuring impulsivity and examining its relationship to delinquency. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 192–205.