Stimulus There were once five students studying together in a famous and important university. They were reading their holy book and came to the point where it says ‘We must thank God for the bad things as well as the good ones’. They were puzzled, and took their question to the Professor. ‘We understand the part about th...

Designed by Steven Campbell-Harris Starter activity: 'change places if' with a colour focus (change places if your favourite colour is.., change places if you think black is not a colour, change places if you are wearing something blue etc) Main activity: A short poem/Thoughting to read aloud (possibly with the prop of ...

The Philosophy This session follows on from the 'Knowledge' session, but it works independently of that. It gets children to look at the nature of knowledge – where does it come from, and how can we distinguish it from belief or opinion, and what kind of things can we know about? Like 'Tabby Is A Cat', use sentences o...

Stimulus: The Sheep Thieves Once upon a time there were two sheep thieves who regularly stole from the townspeople. One day they are caught, and the punishment for steeling sheep in this town is to be branded with a hot branding iron. An ‘S’ and a ‘T’ are seared across the foreheads of the sheep thieves so wherever the...

A three-minute play by Paul Bodin.   Revised by fifth graders Audrey McCarthy & Jasmine Klein For more info on how to use this play for an enquiry, have a look at Pete's blog at the following link: https://www.philosophy-foundation.org/blog/dialogues-in-philosophy-with-children. (Note:  CAFO is pronounced “ka&rdq...

THE PAINTER AND THE WISE OLD LAY 7 SESSIONS MONDAY There was once a painter who lived in a small village deep in the countryside. He spent all day carefully painting beautiful pictures which he would sell in the market. It was a peaceful job and he had plenty of time and silence to think. Sometimes he would have questions about life tha...

Developed in classrooms by Miriam Cohen Christofidis and Peter Worley from an original idea by Miriam. Starter 1 and 2 could be viewed as alternatives, in which case, choose which one you’d prefer to start your session with. Or, you could use one starter one week and the other the following week, as they are closely related but deal wit...

Stimulus Marco had an X-Box. And on it he played a game called Avenger. In this game he was a soldier who had a choice of all different kinds of weapons, including: a semi-automatic rifle, a sniper’s rifle, a grenade-launcher and a pistol. He had a knife too but that was pretty useless. His mission was to destroy and kill. He was attack...

Stimulus Lara had an X-Box. Her favourite game was called Quest. In the game she was a wizard who had to fight evil enemies and help innocent people. She was a hero. Some of the levels were really tricky. You had to be clever and skilful and really use your brain. She loved the game. Lara didn’t love school. She didn’t like the...