What is P4C?

Philosophy for Children is an approach to education that puts philosophical enquiry at the heart of the learning process.

P4C develops thinking that is critical, using reasoned moves to build arguments; collaborative, with the sharing and challenging of ideas; creative in the willingness to speculate, take risks and imagine; and caring, because everything is set up to foster consideration and respect for one another.

Philosophy 4 Children (P4C) is one of the ways that we use in school to encourage the children to develop their confidence and critical thinking skills. We begin each week by introducing the P4C question that we will be considering and we review children’s ideas during Friday assembly. Each half term has a different focus with the emphasis placed not on the answer but the explanation of their reasoning behind their decision. With P4C we stress that there is no such thing as a wrong answer and every response is equally valid as long as it can be explained. As a school we are extremely positive about the benefits of P4C and have found that children are much more willing to ‘have a go’ and share their ideas and they demonstrate a greater ability to justify their responses showing a deeper level of thinking. We hope you enjoy discussing our weekly P4C questions at home and look forward to hearing some of your ideas.