Kathy Palmer Head Teacher, Eliot Bank School
Philosophy has developed our more able, but also given great confidence to those children who struggle with the more conventional curriculum. Our children are going into such a changing world. We can’t predict what they’re gong to need in terms of knowledge, but one thing we can give them is confidence and a sense of how to learn. Philosophy gives them those skills.
“Peter is an excellent practitioner with a deep interest in children and how they learn.”
Kathy Palmer Head Teacher Eliot Bank
THE PHILOSOPHY SHOP
thinking changes
Sarah Gorbutt Associate Head Teacher, Hither Green School
Peter has an engaging way of enabling children to successfully explore philosophical questions. Philosophy encourages children to talk and it also really develops their listening skills - they genuinely want to hear what other people think. What better way can there be to encourage listening?
Dean Housen, St Marys’s C of E Primary School
Peter has been running sessions with all of our split year 5/6 classes since the beginning of the autumn term 2008. Each class had a block of 5 sessions which built on the previous sessions and linked in to our current curriculum work (Numeracy, Literacy and PHSE).
The children hugely enjoyed the sessions (so much to the point where all children were on time for Peter’s Wednesday session!) and it was extremely interesting as a class teacher to see how the children’s thought process grew over the sessions when dealing with abstract concepts.
The lessons were delivered in a lively way that fully engaged all pupils and consolidated their speaking and listening skills along with group working skills. Also I learnt an awful lot about the phrasing of questions to children from watching Peter teach. Since the sessions ended I’ve noticed a marked improvement in how children think before they answer more complex questions across the curriculum. I’m looking forward to working with Peter again in our next sessions which will be linked to our SATS preparation.
Karen Large, Holy Trinity School
Philosophy sessions are always a highlight in our week in Y5, although no written work ever takes place, the amount of learning being undertaken is immense.
Sessions always begin with a ‘calming’ circle which signals to the class a time to focus and clear heads of day-to-day worries. This chosen starter calms many of my pupils down, especially those with SEN and behaviour issues. Over the weeks I began to notice that the concentration span of certain children began to increase, and the language being spoken in session time was being thought through on a more regular basis before being offered to the group.
The other major change I began to see, was that my class of very ‘prickly’ children began to build on each others ideas quite happily, as well as being able to challenge class mates thinking in a mature way.
The children are actively encouraged to ask questions and challenge. In a society which strongly focuses on the correct and incorrect (especially with so many exams and tests in schools) I feel it important to show children there is another way of learning and finding out, and those who have mastered the art of questioning are on an exciting life path.
Eugene Romain, Grinling Gibbons School
Children grow in confidence when they realise that the primary resource for the group is not regurgitated fact, but rather their own independent opinions. Their delight and absorption in coming to use their analytic skills is obvious, and their quick adaptation to the individuality and originality that real thinking requires is impossible to miss.
Parents
“Our son is absolutely loving philosophy and he really looks forward to the sessions. As a child who struggles to write neatly, the fact he is judged in philosophy primarily on his oral skills is a real bonus, and already we are seeing an increased confidence”
“My son has always been interested in profound questions: when he was two-and-a-half, he asked, 'Who made God?'. The philosophy lessons at school have helped give him a framework for this curiosity and have been a major highlight of his week. He has grown in confidence since taking part in the sessions – and while it may be a coincidence, he has made faster than expected progress in his schoolwork, too.”
If you are interested in having philosophy in your school please email us or contact 020 8699 9314 to arrange a meeting.
