Enquiries
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The Perfect School
Focus
With eyes shut try to imagine the perfect school. Ask the following questions:
How would the pupils behave?
How would the teachers take the lessons?
How would the pupils feel at the end of the school day?
How would the teachers feel at the end of the school day?
Stimulus
This piece of paper is a letter from the Prime...
Ages: Ages 16-18 (KS5), Ages 14-16 (KS4), Ages 11-14 (KS3), Ages 7-11 (KS2)
Subjects: Ethics
Themes: Virtue ethics, Bravery, Behaviour
The Printing Press
BACKGROUND
This story draws on events in history. The Europeans were not the first to use ‘movable type’, it seems. That happened in China and Korea some centuries earlier, but the Europeans developed moveable type in the 15th century. The main advance was that individual metal letters could be packed next to one another to make p...
Ages: Ages 14-16 (KS4), Ages 11-14 (KS3), Ages 7-11 (KS2)
Subjects: RE
The Prom
THE PROM
A young man named Joe was looking forward to his final week in school. At the end of the week there would be a prom - a huge party where everyone would dress up really smart and dance in the school hall. Joe’s mum bought him a suit and his brother, Seb, showed him how to tie the tie properly. Seb also told him to star...
Ages: Ages 7-11 (KS2), Ages 11-14 (KS3), Ages 14-16 (KS4), Ages 16-18 (KS5)
Subjects: Ethics
The Science Project
A two-minute play by Paul Bodin.
(Words inside brackets are stage directions only. They are not meant to be said out loud.)
For information on how to use this play in the classroom, take a look at Pete's blog here: https://www.philosophy-foundation.org/blog/dialogues-in-philosophy-with-children
The Science ...
The Singing Tree
By Tim Beardmore-Gray
This enquiry was written for the educational charity GROW.
https://www.grow-up.co/
The story is based on the Swiss tale The Singing Fir Tree, as told by Sheryl Ann Karas. http://spiritoftrees.org/the-singing-fir-tree
The text in brackets can be omitted or included depending on how open you’d like the compreh...
Ages: Ages 14-16 (KS4), Ages 11-14 (KS3), Ages 7-11 (KS2)
Subjects: Ethics
Themes: Vagueness
The Surgeon with Cold Hands
This session was created by Caroline Schaffalitzky de Muckadell, from the University of Southern Denmark. She is part of the project Filosofi i Skolen, which The Philosophy Foundation is partnered with.
Philosophy
A central question in moral philosophy concerns what makes something morally wrong. Is it if the act harms others? If it ...
Ages: Ages 16-18 (KS5), Ages 14-16 (KS4), Ages 11-14 (KS3)
Subjects: Ethics, Epistemology
The Tiger and the Fox
Stimulus
Adapted from: Spiritual Story by Massud Farzan
There was once a man who lived on the edge of a forest near a river. Every morning he saw a fox lying down by the river bank. The fox never got up and walked anywhere. How did it get food, the man wondered… why didn’t it just starve?
Then one day, he had only walked a ...
Ages: Ages 14-16 (KS4), Ages 11-14 (KS3), Ages 7-11 (KS2)
Subjects: RE
The Tolerant School
Designed by Andy West
Philosophy Addressed
Should intolerant opinions be tolerated? (If yes, then what would happen? If no, then by what criterion do we censor?)
What is the difference between disagreeing with someone and being intolerant of them?
Is tolerance an absolute good?
Preliminaries
You may need to pre-teach the meanin...
Ages: Ages 14-16 (KS4), Ages 11-14 (KS3), Ages 7-11 (KS2)
Subjects: Ethics
Themes: Difference, Behaviour
The Two Square
Preparation
Before you read the lesson plan do some thinking of your own. Have you ever tried to answer this question before: 'What is a number?' To help you with this, imagine you are speaking to an alien who is exactly like a human in terms of language and understanding but he/she/it lacks a concept of 'number' so the alien ...
Ages: Ages 14-16 (KS4), Ages 11-14 (KS3), Ages 7-11 (KS2)
Subjects: Metaphysics
The Volcano
BACKGROUND
In Gulliver’s Travels the author Jonathan Swift makes fun of religious and sectarian differences. On the island of Lilliput, there is a deadly dispute between those that crack their boiled eggs on the more pointy end, and those that crack their eggs on the roundy end. The idea is to highlight how random and unimportant the di...
Ages: Ages 14-16 (KS4), Ages 11-14 (KS3), Ages 7-11 (KS2)
Subjects: RE
