Falconbrook Primary School uses Philosophy for Children (P4C) to develop students' thinking skills. P4C provides intellectual, social and emotional tools to think well, think judiciously, and foster care and commitment to act on thinking. It uses classroom discussions to explore questions and ideas. The goal is not to find answers but to question all answers. P4C sessions begin with a stimulus to provoke philosophical discussion using questioning techniques. This helps students analyze, evaluate, interpret and discuss concepts.

1. Falconbrook Primary School, P4C and Learning
„We now accept the fact that learning is a
lifelong process of keeping abreast of
change. And the most pressing task is to
teach people how to learn.‟
Peter Drucker, 1909–2005
(Described by Business Week as ‘the man who
invented management’)
jamesnottingham.co.ukchallenginglearning.com

2. Co-creator of P4C: Anne Margaret Sharp
What P4C does is give
children the intellectual,
social and emotional tools
that they need to think
well, to think judiciously
and reasonably and, by
means of the classroom
community of inquiry,
foster the care,
commitment and courage
to act on their thinking.

3. The Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition
Can read
Need routines the context
Basis for Action
Novice Beginner Competent Proficient Expert

4. Novice: rule-governed behaviour
 Need generalised rules and structures as a guide
 Quality management systems can be very helpful
 If something goes wrong, blame the system or senior people
Little personal responsibility in this context
Beginner: hungering for certainty
 Starting to notice patterns
 Wishing things were more predictable
 Looking for “the book” or “the expert” to provide the answers
 Feel limited personal responsibility

5. Competent: planned & analytical
 Efficient and organised
 Can assess relative importance and urgency
 Can readily describe and explain actions
 Feel personal responsibility for outcomes
Proficient: strategic and able to read context
 Seldom surprised, have learned what to expect
 Have organised knowledge into wise sayings
 Sometimes forget to explain complexities of the big picture to
analytical competent colleagues
 Rapid, fluid, involved, intuitive type of behaviour

6. Expert: right thing at the right time
Highly intuitive, based on huge store of wisdom
Great capacity to handle the unexpected
Highly nuanced behaviour, very context specific
Often there are no words to describe expert
performance, and often it is subconscious anyway
Hard to fit this into quality systems
Performance drops if generalised rules are imposed
Usually does not make for good teaching of novices,
but great for teaching competent people

7. Most P4C sessions begin with a stimulus

8. Example question starters
What is … playing?
How do we know what is … Who decides what is …
What if …
Always or never
When would …
What is the difference between …
Is it possible to …
Should we …

9. Socratic questions
Clarify Are you saying that …?
Can you give us an example of …?
Reasons Why do you say that …?
What reasons support your idea?
Assumptions Are you assuming that …?
What would happen if …?
How could we look at this in a different way?
Viewpoints
What alternatives are there to this?
Wouldn‟t that mean that …?
Effects
What are the consequences of that?

10. A selection of thinking skills
ANALYSE DESCRIBE GROUP RESPOND
ANTICIPATE DETERMINE HYPOTHESI SEQUENCE
APPLY DISCUSS SE SIMPLIFY
CAUSAL- ELABORATE IDENTIFY SHOW HOW
LINK ESTIMATE INFER SOLVE
CHOOSE EVALUATE INTERPRET SORT
CLASSIFY EXEMPLIFY ORGANISE SUMMARISE
COMPARE EXPLORE PARAPHRA SUPPORT
CONNECT SE
GENERALISE TEST
CONTRAST PREDICT
GIVE VERIFY
DECIDE EXAMPLES QUESTION
VISUALISE
DEFINE GIVE RANK
REASONS REPRESEN
T

11. Another principle of P4C
Not all of our questions
answered …
… but all of our answers
questioned

12. Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
Developed during World War II, MBTI is a
personality indicator designed to identify
personal preferences
In a similar way to left or right-handedness,
the MBTI principle is that individuals also
find certain ways of thinking and acting
easier than others
Sensing Evidence Gut feeling Intuition
Introversion Think to talk Talk to think Extroversion
Judging Definite Possible Perceiving
Logic/Reason Empathy
Thinking Feeling

13. Number of words heard by children
A child in a welfare-dependent family hears on average
616 words an hour 500
A child in a working-class home hears on average 1,251
words an hour 700
A child in a professional home hears on average 2,153
words an hour 1100
Number of words spoken by the time children are 3
Hart &Risley, 1995

14. By the time they start school in the UK …
Some children
start school
knowing 6,000
words.
Others, just
500 words.
Rowntree Foundation
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ma
gazine/8013859.stm

16. Mozart – a child prodigy?

18. Intelligence is not fixed (Binet, 1909)
„Some recent philosophers
have given their moral approval
to the deplorable verdict that
an individual‟s intelligence is a
fixed quantity, one which
cannot be augmented. We
must protest and act against
this brutal pessimism … it has
no foundation whatsoever.‟
Alfred Binet
1857 - 1911

19. Middle
class kids
have
better
learning
genes

20. Dweck& Hattie: We should focus on progress, not rank order
92 90 90
85 86 85
73 78 84
64 70 78
43 41 40
32 35 34

21. Assessment capabilities begin with …
What‟s the point?
Ready Learning Intentions
Success Criteria
Initial instruction
Fire First attempts by children
Aim Formative assessment and
a focus on progress

22. What is the point of this lesson and will I make progress?
Learning Intentions
o To find out what links the Vikings with North East England
Success Criteria
o Know when and where the Vikings came from
o Identify names and places associated with the Vikings
o Ask relevant questions

23. Why did they Gate
AD 700 - 1100 attack Lindisfarne? Bairns
Lad
Tarn
Vikings Thriding
Norse Rape &
language pillage
Did they believe in
Longships God?
Dragon Horned
ships helmets

24. Marzano – groups of 3 work best
Informal
Formal
Long-term

25. Why did they Gate
AD 700 - 1100 attack Lindisfarne? Bairns
Captured
Lad
Yorvik in 866
Tarn
Vikings Thriding
Norse Rape &
language pillage
King Cnut Did they believe in
ruled England Longships God?
from 1016 Dragon Horned
helmets Gods included
ships Odin, Thor,
Eric Bloodaxe
Frigg & Loki
Dead warriors went died in 954
to Valhalla

26. Year 7 – Food Unit
Learning Intentions
o Understand the process of hazard analysis and how it
applies to food
Success Criteria
o Use technical vocabulary
o Identify a wide range of types of hazard
o Communicate coherently

28. challenginglearning.com
p4c.coop
james@p4c.com
@JamesNottinghm