Knowing something and being able to use it when it counts are two meaningfully different things, and the distance between them is where most of the real development happens.
Earlier this year, we asked our student panel about the skills they felt most confident in and where they most wanted to grow. The results, published in our latest flagship article, show a motivated and capable group, but one that has clear views about what school has not yet given them enough of.
This article is the practical side of that conversation. Each gap the research identified is a learnable skill which can be practised deliberately.
From the Research
Five areas teens most want to develop
Skills identified by Oxford Scholastica Academy Panellists, aged 13–18, as their top development priorities in 2026.
How Do You Get Better at Speaking Clearly and Concisely?
Communication was the area our Panellists most consistently said they wanted to develop. Specifically, it was the ability to speak clearly and concisely: the capacity to effectively explain an idea out loud, in real time, to someone in front of them. Most students who feel nervous about speaking can, with some encouragement, stand up and say something; oftentimes, the harder thing is deciding what to say and what not to say.
Activity 1: The One-Minute Challenge
The most direct way to build this skill is to practise it within a deliberate constraint. Pick something you’ve recently studied, such as a particular concept, argument or event, and explain it out loud to someone, without notes, in no more than 90 seconds. Alternatively, you can record yourself and play it back, listening for the moments where you repeat yourself, trail off or fill space without adding meaning.
Reading aloud builds a similar kind of awareness. When you read your own written sentences out loud, you quickly notice which ones are working and which ones have too many clauses trying to do the same job.
If you join a debate and public speaking group at school, the discipline of arguing a case within a set time limit compresses all of this into a single, regular practice.
Why Is Choosing a Strategy the Hardest Part of a Problem?
When Panellists were asked which part of solving a difficult problem felt the hardest, choosing a strategy was the most common response, far ahead of understanding the problem or explaining the answer. This points to a specific problem with the way most school learning is structured.
Most of the problem-solving work you do in school arrives with a method attached. A worked example shows the approach, or a textbook chapter indicates which technique the questions are testing, meaning you become fluent at recognising the context and applying the corresponding method. What you rarely practise is the decision itself: choosing which approach is right here, with this particular problem, where the expected method hasn’t been provided.
Activity 2: Decide Before Doing
Building this skill is less about collecting extra methods and more about practising the decision-making step separately. When you encounter a problem, pause before reaching for a technique. Write down two or three possible approaches, even briefly. Ask which conditions would make each one a better choice. This sounds slow, but it builds a kind of metacognitive habit (thinking about the thinking) that compounds over time.
It also helps to deliberately try methods you’re less comfortable with, even in low-stakes settings. The discomfort of trying an unfamiliar approach and getting it wrong is what builds genuine comfort with uncertainty. The Panel findings noted that most teens are willing to try new methods but rarely feel fully confident doing so – and that’s exactly the space where real learning happens, provided you’re allowed to fail without immediate consequences.
Most school problems
Context signals the method → you apply the technique → you check the answer
The decision about which approach to use is already made
Real-world problems
Problem arrives without a label → you decide which approach → you apply and adjust
The decision step is the whole challenge
How Do You Actually Build Critical Thinking?
Critical thinking topped the list of thinking skills teens most want to develop, which is interesting given that it also came out as the area of highest existing confidence. This apparent contradiction makes sense when you look at it more closely. Most students feel capable of evaluating arguments in a general sense, but they also recognise that this general sense isn’t the same as being precise about it.
Critical thinking is not one skill but a cluster of related abilities, each of which can be practised individually.
Critical Thinking
Four components you can practise separately
01
Identifying assumptions
Before you agree or disagree with an argument, ask what it takes for granted. What must be true for the conclusion to follow?
02
Evaluating evidence
Where does this claim come from? What kind of evidence supports it, and how much does that evidence actually prove?
03
Building counterarguments
What is the strongest possible case against the view you're inclined to hold? If you can't construct it, you don't fully understand the debate.
04
Reasoning under time pressure
Critical thinking in a seminar or discussion doesn't allow for long reflection. Timed practice with unfamiliar material builds comfort with this constraint.
Activity 3: Break it into Practisable Parts
A practical place to start is with opinion pieces. This could be a newspaper column or an essay, but any text that makes a case for something is useful. Before you decide whether you agree, spend five minutes writing down the assumptions the argument rests on. What does the writer take as given? What claims are presented as though they’re settled when they might not be? This exercise moves you from reading to examining, which is a different cognitive act and one that’s at the core of university-level study.
From there, practising the counterargument habit regularly – making the strongest possible case against a position before writing in favour of it – builds a kind of intellectual rigour that general reading alone doesn’t produce. It also tends to make your own arguments more precise, because you’ve already addressed the objections.
What Does it Mean to Handle Frustration with Purpose?
Panel findings highlighted something worth noticing here: most teens are already resilient. When learning becomes frustrating, the most common response was to take a break and return to the work, which is a practical, effective strategy. Motivation levels remained high even when things were difficult.
The development opportunity here is less about stopping yourself from quitting and more about what you do in the moment of difficulty, before you step away. There’s a difference between stepping back because something is hard and stepping back because you’ve identified what specifically isn’t working. The second is far more useful when you return.
Activity 4: Name the Block Before You Leave it
Before you put something down, spend two minutes writing a single sentence about where it stopped working: something specific, such as: “I don’t know which part of this argument to address first,” or “I understand the concept but the application keeps going wrong”. That sentence gives you something to work with when you come back. It also trains the habit of defining a difficulty rather than simply feeling it.
Over time, this kind of named frustration builds something that matters considerably when you move into Sixth Form or university. The transition to further education asks you to manage your own process with far less scaffolding, so students who already know how to identify and name a difficulty, rather than just feeling stuck, handle that transition more confidently.
How Do You Expand Beyond Your Default Role in a Team?
Teamwork confidence was high across the Panel, which matters because it means the foundation is already there. Most students reported feeling comfortable working with others, and a large number identified organising or leading as their natural strength in group settings. The challenge the data surfaces is a nuanced one: when most people in a group default to the same role, the other roles go unoccupied.
The less visible contributions in a team – noticing when a group is heading in the wrong direction, asking the question that refocuses a discussion, making space for someone who hasn’t spoken or disagreeing with a plan in a way that improves it – are often the ones that determine whether a team produces something of real quality. They are also the ones that receive the least formal recognition, which means they tend not to be practised intentionally.
Activity 5: The Unnatural Role
In your next group project, identify the role you usually take and consciously try a different one. If you tend to organise, practise being the person who challenges a direction before it’s been finalised. If you tend to go along with decisions, practise being the one who asks whether the group has considered another approach. Neither of these roles requires you to be more assertive in a general sense; they require specific, situational actions that feel unfamiliar until they’ve been tried a few times.
After a group project ends, it’s also worth reflecting on what you actually contributed, beyond the task output. Which moments did you make better? Where did you hold back when you could have said something? That kind of reflective habit, practised consistently, builds the kind of self-awareness that makes collaboration genuinely improve over time.
How Can Teens Start Building These Skills?
You don’t need to overhaul your study routine or sign up for five new activities. The skills described here are built through small, repeated actions: a 90-second explanation at the end of a study session, a deliberate attempt to voice a counterargument before you write your position or two minutes of writing about where something stopped working before you put it down. None of these take long, but they do require consistency.
These skills also become more important, not less, as you move through your education. The shift to Sixth Form and university brings longer timelines, less guidance and more expectation of independent judgement, and the students who navigate that transition most confidently are those who have already been practising the underlying habits. Developing your capacity to speak precisely, reason carefully and work with genuine flexibility in a team is preparation for the kind of learning that awaits you at that stage, even if it doesn’t feel that way when you’re doing it in a lower-stakes context.
If you want to develop these capabilities in a more structured environment – with university-style teaching, real academic challenges and the kind of feedback that specifically targets how you think rather than just what you produce – Oxford Scholastica Academy’s residential summer courses and online programmes are designed for exactly that purpose.
Methodology: Oxford Scholastica Academy collected original data from students aged 13–18 on The Panel. All findings reported in this article are based exclusively on responses provided by participants in this survey.
By Oxford Scholastica Academy
Since 2013, Oxford Scholastica’s award-winning programmes have empowered thousands of students to seize the future. We have welcomed bright students from around the globe for more than a decade, giving them the edge to help them succeed, find their purpose and make a difference in the world.
Every Great Journey Starts with Optimism
Related Educational Articles
We have hundreds of subject-specific articles that illuminate your educational journey.
Here are a few we thought you might like based on reading this article.
Why Students Should Learn How Artificial Intelligence Works
Understanding how artificial intelligence actually works is about recognising the tools already shaping the world we live in and knowing how to use...
High Agency in a Changing World: How Teens Can Take Control of Their Future
Teenagers today are graduating into a fast-changing, unpredictable world – full of both opportunities and challenges. At Oxford Scholastica, we...
