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CPD for teachers – How philosophy training changed my view of teaching

Emma Jane Smith discusses her initial fear of teaching philosophy, and how a well-designed CPD programme helped her love it…

Emma Jane Smith
by Emma Jane Smith
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For many people, the word ‘philosophy’ probably conjures up images of bearded old men in ancient Greece, debating the mysteries of life. This is certainly how I viewed it when it was suggested we introduce Philosophy for Children (P4C) into our curriculum.

How would we find time for it? What possible impact could it have on our pupils in one of the most deprived areas of the country? But it did have an impact. From pupils treating each other with greater respect, to their ability to really think about their answers across other subjects, it was clear – even in the early days – that something special was happening.

However, the journey that led us to become the first Gold Award-winning P4C school in Merseyside has been one in which staff have also changed the way we think and teach, and it involved a lot of carefully planned CPD.

P4C

When in 2017 David Harrop – one of our then assistant headteachers – announced he was introducing P4C to Middlefield, my heart sank.

Timetables were already congested and this was something else we were going to have to fit in. But as teachers we get on with things and give it our best. I’m glad we did.

The school signed up for a training and support programme from the P4C charity SAPERE, delivered by Julie McCann of School Improvement Liverpool.

Our first two-day inset consisted of SAPERE’s Level 1 foundation training with lots of hands-on activities, including the chance to participate in similar P4C sessions, or enquiries, that we’d be facilitating.

That helped me get to grips with what it would be like for the children to take part in an enquiry, and helped me to think about the kinds of thinking skills – critical, creative, collaborative and caring thinking – that we were setting out to develop.

I admit, though, I was nervous. What would happen in an actual enquiry in the classroom? How would the children respond?

Overcoming challenges

We started teaching P4C for up to one hour a week, from Nursery to Year 6. One of the programme’s challenges is that you don’t teach it in a conventional sense.

You’re more of a facilitator, helping to guide the discussion – like Fiona Bruce on Question Time.

This was out of my comfort zone. I had to adapt my teaching style, to ‘let go’ a little. But as my confidence grew, I began to enjoy it.

Dialogues in my classroom included ‘can you have bravery without fear?’, ‘nature vs nurture’, and ‘is it right for humans to interfere with life?’.

We explored big concepts such as friendship, fear, justice, and gender.

But it was not just about what we discussed, but how we discussed it. As a group, we agreed our ground rules. Everyone had to show respect, take turns to contribute and listen, and share ideas.

Julie became a regular visitor to Middlefield. Working with her, in the classroom and in regular inset sessions, our confidence grew.

She gave us ideas for enquiries and suggestions about how to incorporate P4C into the curriculum. We picked up techniques to develop questioning and thinking skills, and tools to deal with enquiries that got ‘stuck’ or took an unexpected turn.

We became skilled in encouraging children to think beyond their own experiences, to identify assumptions and consider evidence, and to disagree respectfully and with reasons.

Pupil engagement

I was genuinely surprised at how engaged the children were – and how much I enjoyed facilitating P4C, especially listening to the views of those children usually less likely to speak up.

I particularly liked how some EAL or SEN children could turn a question on its head, coming at it from a different perspective and thinking outside the box.

We all began to spot ripples of P4C in our own teaching. It began to crop up in other subjects; moral questions in RE; discussing thoughts, feelings and actions of characters in English; and in maths as part of problem solving and reasoning.

Further training

In summer 2018, our assistant head and I took part in SAPERE’s Level 2A training with Julie. This two-day course focused on developing our facilitation skills but also on helping us to support our Level 1-trained colleagues.

Level 2A training focused on enabling us to take enquiries to another level with more thought and discussion required.

During this training, we explored concept development exercises to use as activities in P4C to broaden children’s thinking. Back in school, I delivered similar training to staff and we took part in all the concept activities before trying them in our classrooms with the children.

Teaching approaches

With Level 2A training under my belt, I began to take a more active role in how P4C was delivered. Now we had seen the difference it was making to staff and students, we dedicated ourselves to achieving SAPERE’s Gold Award.

In 2019, I took SAPERE’s Level 2B course, again with Julie and which was hosted at Middlefield. One of the most valuable parts of this two-day training was the focus on navigating challenging issues which might arise during an enquiry.

Along with other teachers from across Liverpool, we each devised our own philosophical enquiries with Julie as facilitator. She also taught us how to support our colleagues with delivery and how to create a culture of open dialogue among teaching staff about P4C to promote their own CPD.

This all gave me the confidence to plan an enquiry on stereotypes, which led to a dialogue about the language of discrimination – and we’ve since seen a decrease in the number of reported incidents of homophobic language in school.

I felt ready, when the opportunity arose in Spring 2020, to take over as P4C Lead. I’ve now organised a number of whole staff insets.

Some were led by Julie but more recently I’ve adopted that role. As part of our Gold Award submission and using what I’d learned in my training so far, I was able to write our P4C policy (which is on our school website).

P4C CPD is now timetabled annually and all new starters are trained to Level 1, with at least two staff (one for each Key Stage) due to complete their training to 2B by the end of the academic year.

Our P4C CPD is an ongoing process. The continued commitment to growing and sustaining P4C through CPD is really valued by our team, and by new members of staff.

We know that we have a long-term commitment to remaining a P4C school and we can plan for progress, while deepening our skills and knowledge.

Emma Jane Smith is P4C lead at the Middlefield Primary School in Liverpool. More info on P4C is available at sapere.org.uk

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