Philosophy For Children

We aspire to all our pupils developing high levels of skill in collaborative, caring, critical and creative thinking - the 4Cs of P4C ~ critical, creative, collaborative and caring thinking. Philosophy is embedded in our learning at Armathwaite. We In addition, children take part in enquiries with the other members of staff linked to specific curriculum areas. Each half term, the whole school comes together to take part in a cross-phase enquiry prepared and facilitated by the older children.

We were absolutely thrilled to have been accredited with the Gold P4C School Award in 2015. We were the first school in the North west and only the fifth in the country. We have since been re-assessed in as a gold school in 2018. You can read a copy of the report from this visit here.

Spring 2022

In our learning assembly we have been thinking about age discrimination and the perceptions and stereotypes that can exist around age, particularly people who are older and younger. We discussed this as a whole school, watching some social experiment video clips as a stimulus for our discussions.
Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 followed this up with a P4C enquiry around the concept of ‘old’. We started by generating a concept wheel around ‘old’ before developing our own philosophical questions.

Have a look at the questions we generated and some of our thoughts from the enquiry that followed.
What do you think?

Autumn Term 2021

In Years Nursery, Reception, 1 and 2 we have been thinking about identity and whether it is important to have a name. We shared the story Nothing by Mick Inkpen, Nothing has been lost in the attic for so long it doesn't remember who it is or what it is called. The story follows Nothing's adventures to discover what and who it is. We spent time thinking about who Nothing might be and what name Nothing might have. We also thought about how we would feel if we had no name and what that might mean for us. This helped us to decide if having a name is an important part of our identity.

This learning links to Article 8 of the Rights of the Child ~

Article 8 of the UNCRC is about a child or young person’s name, nationality and family relationships. It says that the government shouldn’t interfere with a child or young person’s right to any of these. It also says the government should be able to help if any of these things are taken from them illegally.

As well as this, this Article says official records should be kept of who a child or young person is to make sure information about their name, nationality or birth parents isn’t lost.

A child or young person’s identity is made up of many different parts. Among other things, it includes:

their name and nationality
their race, culture, religion and language
their appearance, abilities, gender identity and sexual orientation

Here is a picture of the display we made of our thoughts.

Spring 2019

The children in Years 5 and 6 had a fantastic visit to the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester. We have been looking at the two World Wars, as well as more recent conflicts, as part of our English and Philosophy, learning this term. It was fascinating to explore the displays and to find out more about the war and the impact it has on people. we also enjoyed a quick explore around the Quays and loved seeing the BBC studios where Blue Peter comes from and Pudsey lives.

Autumn 2018

As part of our on going 'Rights Respecting' work and linked to our work on the concept of normal in philosophy the children in Years 5 and 6 have been looking at The Rights of the Child whilst thinking about children with a disability. We looked at all the articles and thought about which ones were the most important and gave most protection to children living with a disability. We talked about the university of the rights and how they protect everyone.

What is Normal?

In our Year 5 and 6 Philosophy sessions we have been looking at the concept of normal. The children voted to discuss the question:

"Why do we use the word normal, and what does it mean?"

The enquiry into this question raised lots of deep thought and questions and made us really question our own use and understanding of the concept.

Sapere P4C Conference

A group of 5 of our Years 6s went to London to present at the national P4C conference hosted by SAPERE. We were honoured to attend the conference and provide an interactive workshop for many of the 130 delegates. It was an early start for Oscar, Keira, Flynn, Hannah and Lewis (not forgetting Mrs Hepworth and Mrs Yates) but the journey soon passed quickly and there were whoops of joy when we passed Wembley Stadium! On arrival, the conference was in mid-flow so we were able to enjoy listening and meeting the staff and pupils from Bow Secondary School and hearing about how P4C is carried out in such a large school.

After a fabulous lunch, it was our turn to present. Our nerves were soon calmed after we had all introduced ourselves and got the audience to play a quick thinking skills game which we had devised ourselves. Mrs Yates and Mrs Hepworth talked about how P4C has impacted on the curriculum(especially writing), student voice and developing as global citizens. Our audience were asked to reflect on the questions our presentation had raised and then we, the pupils, selected random members of the audience to share their questions (everyone had talked with a partner so we knew they all had questions to ask!)

This was a fantastic opportunity for us to attend the conference and we are really appreciative of SAPERE for asking us. It really helped us to build our confidence and coming to London for the day was a real treat as most of us had never been before, or had not been for a long time. Thank you SAPERE!

After our presentation, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to visit the British Museum nearby and take a look at all the Egyptian artefacts (we are learning about this in history) and Lewis was delighted to get the chance to visit his ‘name-sake’, the Lewis Chessmen.