Philosophy GCSE
Over the last year The Philosophy Foundation has been supporting the Philosophy in Education Project (PEP), run by Dr John Taylor and A. C. Grayling, along with SAPERE, A Level Philosophy and a host of well-known philosophers including Angie Hobbs, Simon Blackburn, Nigel Warburton and Tim Williamson.
This is a response by Peter Worley to ‘why there shouldn’t be a philosophy GCSE‘ by Miss AVE Carter, who has started an important open debate about the newly proposed philosophy GCSE by PEP.
Posted by on 22nd June 2015 at 12:00am
Category: Education, P4C, Philosophy
How To See Into Their Heads
By Andy Day
How To See Into Their Heads: Picturing a child’s own number line.
‘Miss, why we doing this?’ is something you hear from time to time. And however irritating it might be in tone, it’s a question that deserves an answer. After all, if we are going to take anyone’s time up teaching them anything, we should be able to say why that particular thing is worth the bother. Our reason doesn’t have to be of a narrow ‘you’ll need this to get a job’ type. It could be: ‘Understanding this will make you a better human being in countless ways’, but there must be a sense of purpose in education. Familiarity with our curriculum can allow us to disregard fundamental questions that affect someone coming to the topic for the first time.
Posted by on 19th May 2015 at 12:00am
Category: Education
CPD: How Not To Do It
I’d like to start with a question:
How can we become better teachers?
Some of the answers that have been suggested (not always by teachers) are: performance targets and rewards; teaching from a centrally-designed curriculum; higher qualifications and study; INSET sessions; plain old experience. While all of these have their place, I am interested is something else, and I would like you now to answer a second question – as a way of getting an answer to the first:
How have I become a better teacher up until now?
Posted by on 25th April 2015 at 12:00am
Category: Education
The Talking Skull – thinking about making claims
From Peter Worley’s new book due out in September 2015, given here as part ofKeystone Workshop held on March 25th in St Albans.
Posted by on 25th March 2015 at 12:00am
Category: Education, P4C, Philosophy
From the Chalkface
by Steve Hoggins
I had a breakthrough with one of my pupils this week, all initiated by a great learning support mentor who has also helped with our Young Philosophers group (a termly meet up of children from across Lewisham who are good at philosophy, and who don’t normally get these opportunities. The aim of the group is to inspire children, raise attainment, and also for us to keep in contact with children who would benefit from extra support).
Our class had a new arrival last term, an extremely quiet pupil who wasn’t making friends and refused to speak in philosophy. The quiet pupil was assigned a learning mentor after the first few weeks and a couple of weeks after the learning mentor approached me to say that this pupil had been talking about philosophy in their one-to-one lessons.
Posted by on 17th March 2015 at 12:00am
