Thinking Schools International grew out of the lifetime of work by Dr David Hyerle in the field of cognitive education and by a small group of educational consultants beginning in 2004 and led by Kestrel Consulting in the UK. Dr. Bob Burden, a long time educator and researcher in the field of thinking development, and Director of the Cognitive Centre at Exeter University, soon became interested in the work. Kestrel offered schools a range of professional development approaches to the teaching of thinking, while the Cognitive Centre became an institution for assessing and certifying schools as Thinking Schools. During the same span of time, Dr. David Hyerle from the United States, an international leader in the field of thinking process development through Thinking Maps® and other approaches, formed a non-profit organization Thinking Foundation with a primary focus on how to transform whole school communities toward a focus on cognitive, creative, and critical thinking along with dispositions/Habits of Mind and collaborative/social emotional learning. In 2010, as the number of schools in the UK in the Thinking Schools network grew into the hundreds and the number of schools accredited by the Cognitive Centre grew to over 40, it became clear to all that the idea of formalizing the facilitation of Thinking Schools internationally was a worthy and viable venture. Thinking Schools International, LLC was formed in 2011 with support of colleagues in the UK and US.