What is Philosophy for Children?

Philosophy for Children or P4C is an approach to teaching and learning which aims to enhance children’s communication and thinking skills, increase their self-awareness and self-esteem and, in turn, improve their academic attainment.

During P4C sessions, children are taught how to create their own philosophical questions and they then choose one that is the focus of an enquiry. The underlying principle is for children to experience rational and reasonable dialogue, and develop skills which enable them to navigate discussions and debates about things that matter to them.

Our aims

Through the teaching of P4C, we aim to encourage children to:

  • Listen and communicate effectively
  • Demonstrate an awareness and respect for other arguments and the values of others
  • Express themselves effectively and with confidence
  • Justify their own thoughts and opinions with respect and eloquence
  • Structure their thoughts in a way that they make sense to others
  • Develop critical thinking skills
  • Think and respond with empathy and care for others
  • Think collaboratively in order to build on the ideas of others
  • Use creative thinking skills to think of new ideas and suggest alternatives

P4C at Pleasant Street

Each half term classes take part in a Diversity Morning where work is based around themes from the PSHE and SRE curriculum.  The themes in the texts are used as a stimulus for P4C enquiries, giving the children a chance to think about and discuss key principles. This offers the opportunity for children to think more deeply and philosophically, encouraging them to develop skills of diplomacy and an awareness of others, which can be carried with them throughout their life.



Useful Websites

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P4C Chatter

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Diversity Day Spring

19-03-2024

For diversity day this term Reception read the story ‘It’s okay to be different’ which had a positive messages of acceptance and promotes confidence for all. Reception then had a circle time where they all discussed that’s it’s okay to be themselves. Reception then drew and wrote a sentence as to why it’s okay to be something which was then shared in assembly.

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Diversity Day – Walk Tall

19-03-2024

This diversity day, we used the story ‘Walk Tall’ as our stimulus to explore the P4C question ‘Do people always know that they are bully?”

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Diversity Day

19-03-2024

During Diversity Day class 3 looked at the book “Buster the Bully” by Maisha Oso. The book is about a fish that picks on and bullies other little fish. He then goes out to sea and gets bullied by a shark and killer whale. The book gives both perspectives of being the bully and bullied. We discussed what it feels like to be bullied.

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Diversity Day Spring 2

19-03-2024

Using Tom Percival’s ‘Meesha Makes Friends’ as a stimulus, the children produced some excellent instructions of how to make friends before completing a P4C session with the question ‘Should there be rules for making friends? Would rules make it easier?’

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Diversity Day

19-03-2024

For Diversity Day we read ‘Ruby’s Worry’. We thought about the different themes in our story and discussed what a worry is. We spoke about what we can do when we feel worried and thought about the different people we can share our worries with.
Our P4C question was ‘Is it ever useful to worry?’

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Diversity Day

19-03-2024

Class 6 explored emotions in diversity day. We looked at what depression is and ways of making ourselves and others feel better.

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Diversity Day

19-03-2024

During Diversity Day class 4 looked at “a shelter for sadness” by Anne Booth. The book is about a small boy who creates a shelter for his sadness, a safe space where Sadness is welcome, where it can curl up small, or be as big as it can be, where it can be noisy or quiet, or anything in between. The boy can visit the shelter whenever he needs to, every day, sometimes every hour, and the two of them will cry and talk or just sit, saying nothing. We discussed whether you should ever pretend you don’t feel a certain emotion.

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Diversity Day Spring 1

19-03-2024

For diversity day this term we have read a lovely story called ‘When sadness comes to call’, we discussed what makes us sad some times and that it’s okay to be sad and be accepting of it. The children drew pictures of what makes them sad.

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Diversity Day – I Have A Dream

19-03-2024

Such rich discussions this morning during Diversity Day! We thought about the impact of Martin Luther King’s life and speech, then formulated a question for the class!!

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Diversity Day – The Colours of Us

19-03-2024

For diversity day we read a lovely story called “the colours of us”, we discussed the colours of people’s skin and how it makes us unique and we then created self portraits.

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Diversity Day – The Patchwork Quilt

19-03-2024

During Diversity Day class 4 had the pleasure of reading ‘The Patchwork Path’ by Bettye Stroud. We discussed the word ‘Equality’ and what this represented. Class 4 then enjoyed creating our own patchwork quilt.

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Diversity Day – Moses

19-03-2024

For Diversity Day we read the book Moses, a moving story of Harriet Tubman who bravely and selflessly led her people from slavery to freedom. We reflected (privately) on the story, formulated some questions and built on our ideas.

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Diversity Day – Marvellous Me

19-03-2024

Today, we celebrated Diversity Day. In Nursery we read a wonderful book called “Marvellous Me”. This text allowed our children to consider how they’re different from their classmates, but how each of them are Marvellous in their own unique way.

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