“An excellent training day with clear, relevant content. A vast amount of ideas to use back in the classroom and a really useful information pack.” This is one of the feedback comments from our training on the outskirts of Birmingham yesterday. Here are a couple more:
“Dot and Barbara are clearly exerts and speak with a wealth of real and recent experiences.”

“Presenters shared their ideas and experiences of p4c in real classroom settings. Many questions answered honestly to support any concerns and encourage deep thinking.”

 

Asking big questions…

Enquiring into faith…

Why do people have the belief they have…?

How does faith affect people’s lives…?

This is exactly the sorts of questions children ask in philosophy for children!

“It was a really good session – the staff are still buzzing about it. We’ve got a follow up meeting on Monday to talk about how we put it into practice now. Thanks for such inspiring input.”

This comment is from the head at the latest school we worked with. We had a great morning with a very enthusiastic staff group. Here are some more comments:

• clear focus
• presenters had a nice, easy going manner
• useful ideas
• could see the benefits of activities in all areas of the curriculum
• very do-able straightforward activities to use with whole class and small groups
• packed a lot into a short time
• gave a brilliant introduction to the concept
• staff enthused and raring to go

Here’s an extract from a lovely email from the head teacher who hosted, and was inspired by, the training event on Monday:

I just wanted to say a big thank you from the staff at The Hills. My staff really enjoyed the session you delivered on Monday and are already planning and scheming how to build things into the curriculum. We had a fantastic professional discussion in the afternoon which has led to some innovative thinking from teaching staff – hopefully this will impact on the whole school culture.

Three schools brought together nearly 50 staff members for an Inset training day on Monday to kick start philosophy in the classroom.

With a large group we start the day with everyone working together which can get noisy at times! Later we break into smaller groups for practical work. Here is what one headteacher commented:
“Fantastic, spot on. Excellent activities. Fantastic, will certainly be incorporating into whole school.”

Other teachers commented: “Totally appropriate and really showed us how we could use philosophy in the classroom. Very useful. I am looking forward to seeing P4C in my school.”

“Very informative, excellent ideas given. A safe learning environment, great warm up ideas for the session and eye opener to how this can be used in the classroom…”

Happy New Year! We started 2016 in a primary school in Woodford Green. A lively group of forty staff from several different schools in the area led to a very interesting day. In the morning we looked at the skills children need to develop for effective philosophical enquiry, the role of warm up games and the format for an enquiry. In the afternoon the time was divided between looking at stimuli, developing a thinking class environment and ways of using mini philosophy enquiries.

” Excellent, engaging, interesting.”

“Informative, clearly presented … lots of opportunities to ask questions.”

” Thorough and very accessible.”

We had a delightful afternoon in the beautiful setting of Swinfen Hotel near Lichfield leading an enthusiastic group of head teachers through an introduction to Philosophy for Children. This is the feedback from one of the participants:

“High quality presentation with a variety of activites which engaged me and enabled me to form a clear understanding of P4C. I like the very structured approach to developing pupil’s ability to:

• think
• form open ended questions
• develop confidence to speak, share and discuss in front of others.

It was very useful, I intend to follow up on this at my school.”

“The principles of P4C are exactly what we are looking for as a school to develop our pupils as independent thinkers who understand they have a voice and an opinion.” This comment is from the school we worked with recently in Hull. Working with a very lively and enthusiastic group of teachers the training day was great fun! Here are some feedback comments:

“Brilliant examples of games / activities that we can carry out with the class, shows how quickly / easily speaking and listening can improve and creative thinking can be promoted.”

“Excellent – working through the activities really helped to experience the process and to see the value of the discussions.”

“Lots of ideas to take away and use to make P4C successful in our school. The practical side of the course is really useful to help you with your own practise. Many thanks!”

We work very hard at the planning stage to ensure our training sessions are tailored to the needs of each school we work with and we really value the comments from staff at the end of the training day.  Our feedback forms ask for comments on presentation, content and how useful the session was. We had an inspiring day with a delightful group of teachers in Northamptonshire and here are some of their comments:

Presentation:

Excellent. Felt at ease and enthused by the way it was delivered.

Absolutely fantastic! Very engaging and well balanced with discussions and activities.

Very professional, thought provoking and inclusive (it’s rare that I am fully engaged for a full day!)

Content:

Very inspiring and exciting.

Excellent. Practical ideas, the “reality”, and what not to do. Can’t wait to try it out!

Accessible and good variety.

Was the session useful?

Very much so. I think it could change our school massively, show the children how thinking can be fun and help them express and understand themselves and each other.

Yes. Pitched perfectly and demonstrated well. I can see this working brilliantly in our school and feel that I should always have been doing it!

Very much so. It gave me lots of ideas and information all of which are useable in the classroom (and at home). I thoroughly enjoyed today – thank you!

 

 

“Extremely useful, very enjoyable, looking forward to using this with the children!”

“Excellent! So much was covered in the day.”

It’s good to know our training is inspiring! These are a couple of comments from the schools we worked with on Inset days at the start of this term. With two schools at opposite sides of the country we did a lot of miles, from St Helens near Liverpool on Tuesday to North Norfolk on Wednesday. We were made very welcome in both schools and left staff eager to bring philosophical enquiry to their classes.

We will be on the road again later this month to schools in South London and Nortamptonshire.