1. The Croydon Avengers P4C pre-trip lesson
Created in collaboration with Rachael Garvin

2. What do you need to belong?
Go and stand next to the person who said the thing you think is the most important thing to belong.
Tell the people around you why you chose to stand there.
Find someone in the room who chose a different answer to you. Can you persuade them to change their answer?
Warm-up. Collect four answers from the class and get each student who answered to stand in a corner. Other students should stand next to the student whose answer they most agree with. Students to tell each other why they picked that answer. Students then go and find someone who chose a different answer and try to persuade them to change their answer.

3. Read the comic independently*
What ‘big ideas’ or ‘talking points’ does it deal with?
*You can download the comic from the Why Comics? website
The comic can be downloaded from the Why Comics? website. Students should be sitting in a circle – either on the floor or on chairs. Allow for some time after they have all read the comic for silent, private thinking. Write some suggestions on the board to help them if you think they need some guidance.

4. In groups of three Avoid:
Share your talking points with each other. One person from each group is going to share back their groups ideas.
Each group should come up with a good question for the whole group to think about.
Avoid:
questions you can answer with yes or no
questions you can google the answer to
questions you need to have read the comic before you can answer
Provide sugar paper for the groups to write their questions on.

5. Question Airing Let’s share our questions.
Are there any which are similar which we could put together?
What do you like about our questions?
Which question shall we choose for our enquiry?
Write the questions on a board and clarify meanings if necessary. Merge any similar questions.
Ask the students to choose a question they didn’t create and say why they like it. Finally take a vote – students can vote for as many questions as they like. (Option to do this with their eyes shut)

6. First Thoughts Questioners Kick Off!
Think silently for 30 seconds about how you might answer the question.
Tell your neighbour your thoughts.
Share with the whole class.
Give the students some time to think individually and then share initial thoughts with their neighbours before starting the group discussion. Then invite the people whose question was chosen to give some of their first thoughts.

7. Building Our Ideas The current speaker chooses who will speak next.
If you’d like to speak hold your hand out palm up.
Try to choose people who have not spoken yet in this discussion or have not spoken much.
Allow unprompted discussion for 10 minutes, then the teacher becomes ‘chair’ again and drives focus back on the original question. You can choose a pertinent phrase, idea or opinion here and ask them all to think just about that idea.

8. Last Thoughts What have you learnt from this enquiry?
Has the way you think about this idea changed?
We will go round the circle and everyone will have the chance to share their final thoughts on our question.
This is a time to reflect on the enquiry, what the students have learnt. You should go round the circle and ask each student to speak in turn. If students are reluctant to talk, you can suggest that they say which opinions they agree/disagree with rather than give an independent statement of their own.