Philosophy and Thinking Skills
Facilitator: Mrs Annie Mason
We believe that in order for each child to reach their full potential they need to be supported and challenged to think for themselves. Not only do children need time to think, they need to be taught to think and they must be challenged to think.
The main strengths in doing Philosophy with children are:
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Thinking skills are developed through a process of dialogue e.g. enquiry, reasoning, creative thinking, evaluation
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It develops and strengthens emotional intelligence e.g. self-awareness, motivation, empathy, social skills
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It develops spiritual intelligence e.g. having visions and values, being able to work against convention
All the children in Years 4, 5 and 6 have one philosophy session each week.The session is introduced with a stimulus which could be a story, a poem or a visual stimulus. This leads to the formulation of philosophical questions from which dialogue is derived where children are encouraged to ask good, open-ended questions. They learn about the process of learning and also about themselves as learners.
