PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN: RAISING STANDARDS AND PREPARING STUDENTS FOR LIFE AND WORK IN THE 21 ST CENTURY Dr. Nicola O’Riordan

Workshop Aims To provide an overview of Philosophy for Children To look at evidence of P4C’s effectiveness in developing cognitive, social and emotional skills To examine the links between P4C, educational policy and the new curriculum To provide a rationale for the adoption of P4C in secondary settings

What are your long term aims for the curriculum?

What is philosophy? Original Greek: Philo (loving) + Sophia (wisdom) Search for truth Conceptual activity

Philosophy for children P4C is a multi-dimensional thinking skills programme which aims to develop: Reasoning skills Creativity Personal and interpersonal skills Ethical understanding

A typical P4C enquiry … 1. Getting ready 2. Presentation of stimulus 3. Thinking time 4. Question making 5. Question airing 6. Question choosing 7. First thoughts 8. Building on ideas 9. Last thoughts 10. Review

What can Philosophy for Children do for your school?

The Benefits of P4C for Students For Students Increased motivation to enquire and learn More critical and reflective thinkers and learners Improved confidence and self- esteem Enhanced literacy, numeracy and oracy For Teachers New strategies to enhance teaching skills Greater confidence with using open- ended questioning and dialogue Greater pupil engagement in learning and curriculum Improvements in classroom behaviour Uplift in standardised test scores

Rokeby Secondary School: The Extra Mile

Policy: P4C and the Pupil Premium £935 per FSM or ever 6 pupil in year 7 to year 11 £1,900 per pupil who has left LA care because of adoption, a special guardianship order, a child arrangements order or a residence order Schools are accountable for how this money is spent Pupil Premium Toolkit: effective feedback, metacognitive and self-regulation strategies and peer tutoring/peer assisted learning were found to be low cost and high impact

What does research say about pupil premium spending?

Improving Pedagogy: teacher questioning The ‘average’ teacher asks c. 400 questions a day, allowing less than a second for an answer, before throwing the question to someone else, or answering it themselves Studies in 1912, 1935, and 1970 all showed at least 60% of teacher questions were ‘lower order’ A 1989 Lincoln Univ. study found only 4% of secondary teacher questions were ‘higher order’ A review of 37 projects in 1988 suggested that increasing the proportion of higher-order questions to 50% brought significant improvement in student attitude and performance Source: Steven Hastings TES, 04/07/2003

Teaching for Enquiry “The test of a good teacher is not how many questions he can ask his pupils that they will answer readily, but how many questions he inspires them to ask which he finds it hard to answer” Alice Wellington Rollins ((1847 – 1897) “Good learning begins with questions not answers” Professor Guy Claxton

The Benefits of P4C for Teachers and Schools New strategies to enhance teaching skills Greater confidence with using open-ended questioning and dialogue Greater pupil engagement in learning and curriculum Improvements in classroom behaviour Uplift in standardised test scores

How does P4C help schools contribute to the aims and objectives of the new national curriculum? Promotes spiritual, moral, cultural and mental development Facilitates creativity, deep learning and intellectual exploration Develops higher order thinking skills Supports the development of oral language

What do employers want? “People who generate bright ideas and have the practical abilities to turn them into successful products and services are vital not just to the creative industries but to every sector of business. Our whole approach to what and how we learn from the earliest stages of learning needs to adapt and change to respond to this need. Academic achievement remains essential, but it must increasingly be delivered through a rounded education which fosters creativity, enterprise and innovation” (DTI & DfEE, 2001, para 2.11)

P4C training opportunities If you are interested in developing P4C in your own school Visit our website: Telephone: