While I was teaching and researching in a primary school in the UK in the late 1980's, I began to be interested in the possibility that sketchbooks might have some value as a tool for exploring ideas in art. Then with the advent of the English National Curriculum in 1989, the use of sketchbooks in art became a statutory requirement in primary schools. Sketchbooks have traditionally used by many artists in the past and are still used by many artists today. However, when the use of sketchbooks was advocated in schools very little research had been done into the educational philosophy behind their use in this context. Before the value of sketchbooks could be assessed many questions needed to be asked. My subsequent research over a period of some years began to provide important evidence of their value. It revealed that there are many reasons for using a sketchbook, for example for developing personal themes, as a visual diary and for the exploration of techniques. Their main value was their role in developing children as researchers. This evidence resulted in a book 'Sketchbooks: Explore and Store' published in 1995 by Hodder and Stoughton. The book became a key text for understanding that there is something about this way of working which encourages children to value their own thinking. In other words it provides children with strategies for developing skills as researchers. What has been proven by the best use of sketchbooks is now very positive and vital to art . Where the process has been understood by the teacher sketchbooks are seen as a place to explore offering an arena for generating ideas in order to arrive at creative solutions. This work was subsequently disseminated in other countries for example in Zimbabwe and in Colorado where teachers were eager to explore this new approach in art. There is now evidence that teachers and children who are familiar with using sketchbooks in the context of art are finding that this approach can be used productively in other contexts. It is possible that the skills of close observation, brainstorming, collecting, selecting and extending which are developed through the use of sketchbooks might be transferable into other areas of the curriculum. The early stages of this development in the research, which is on-going, was presented at the BERA Conference in Leeds September 2001. A bid is currently in progress to carry out research in schools to explore the possibility the use of sketchbooks and journals as a way of developing thinking skills and meta-cognition across the curriculum. The paper proposed for this conference will provide the context and then focus on the theoretical perspectives which underpin this latest development.