Philosophy for Children

Class: Lower Key Stage 2: 'The Hedgehogs' Year: 2014 - 2015

We are introducing Philosophy for Children at St Oswald’s to encourage the children to think about asking big questions and explore their own views as well as respecting others.  In year 3 and 4 we have introduced a philosophy Owl (Owl stands for “Our Wisdom Lover!”).  At the moment the Owl is asking the initial questions so that the children get the idea.  We have then explored the questions using thinking hats in small groups (Red = asking a question, Yellow = suggesting an idea, Blue = Summarising what has been said).  The idea behind the hats is that the children take it in turns to speak one at a time and they can keep passing the hats on as much as they like – at the moment the yellow one is being used a lot! 

We have used diamond 9 to explore what makes a good leader and the children have needed to justify their answers.  We also used role play when exploring this idea too.

In order to record our discussions we have a class book where ideas and questions are recorded in the form of a mind map or children’s suggestions on sticky notes.  We keep this is a “philosophy area” where Owl lives with his book and question board.