Philosophy

In 2010, Channing launched a programme for Year 7 pupils under the umbrella term of ‘Philosopy’, which is in fact a mixture of thinking skills, philosophical enquiry and reasoning.

The programme is a mixture of Critical Thinking concepts (taught at AS but adapted for Key Stage 3), and the principles of P4C, or Philosophy for Children, which is a movement that has become increasingly popular and influential in both primary and secondary schools.

The fundamental idea behind P4C is that of questioning – pupils are encouraged to explore concepts and principles, and ultimately, their own processes of thinking, through asking questions. They do this in an environment that is called the ‘community of enquiry’, where pupils sit in a circle, without desks or books or pens, and engage in philosophical dialogue. The idea behind it is that good thinking is learned from dialogue, questioning and argument – and that thinking about concepts rather than just facts leads to broader understanding.

The Year 7 forms are timetabled once a week for a 50-minute ‘Philosophy’ lesson; each group alternates weekly between open-seminar philosophy discussions and critical thinking skills sessions. Topics discussed in the philosophy community of enquiry range from identity and honesty in friendships to issues of difference, freedom and equality.

In the Critical Thinking sessions, a range of topics is introduced, from identifying basic arguments and learning to structure independent arguments, to developing an understanding of such concepts as assumptions, fallacies, good and bad uses of evidence, analogies and credibility of sources.

Despite the ambitious range of topics, the goal is always to get the girls experimenting and having fun with the concepts themselves. In both units of the course, pupils are encouraged to develop the confidence - and the freedom - to think laterally, creatively, and flexibly.

Feedback from pupils so far has been extremely positive.

At the end of the 2010-11 school year, pupils responded to a questionnaire asking them about their experience in the Philosophy and Critical Thinking sessions. More than 90% said that the lessons had changed the way they think, and more than 95% were able to name specific skills that they believed had helped in other lessons. These include:

• Better listening skills (42%)
• Thinking ‘harder’ or ‘more deeply’ (56%)
• Asking better questions (24%)

But perhaps more revealing than statistics are the pupils’ own comments. In their own words, Channing girls had gained ‘patience’, ‘confidence’, ‘better concentration’, ‘focus’ and ‘[more] attention to detail’.  Even more inspiring are those comments that show increased depth of understanding, awareness of others and sensitivity to a wide range of issues and viewpoints. These comments include: