Stimulus  One day, a brother and sister move with their family into a new house. They share a big bedroom right up in the attic at the top of the house. The room has a window that opens through the roof. Each night, when it’s time to go to bed the two children open the window and look out. They can see birds sitting high up in...

By Steve Hoggins This is based on an unattributed drawing from the 23 October 1892 issue of Fliegende Blätter, a German humour magazine. It was made famous by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations For a similar session, please see: Ducks and Rabbits Resources: 2 exact copies of the duck rabbit picture. Search...

Session developed by Matt Harvey. These stories are from the Feel Brave Series, written by Avril McDonald. The Grand Wolf Themes: Death, change When the Wise Owl tells Wolfgang that his grandfather has died I ask the children “what does that mean, that Grand wolf has died?” This is more a case of breaking the circle ...

Edward Colston 120 years ago, a statue of Edward Colston was erected in Bristol. Underneath there was an inscription: “Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city.”  Colston was a wealthy man and he gave a lot of money away to build schools, hospitals and houses for t...

Idea: The aim of the session is to try to provide an account of the conditions under which it can be said that we know something. A secondary, and more philosophical, aim of the session is to identify any children who think that providing an account of knowledge is harder than it might at first seem. This session is very improvisatory so w...

We are going to be talking about magic today. To start with, can you think of the most amazing magic trick you’ve seen? (what was amazing about it?) ‘Break the circle’ on magic   We’re now going to look at a story which may or may not have some magic in it. Stimulus One frosty weekend a scien...

Ask the children what they can tell you about Natural Disasters, they will mention floods, volcanoes, earthquakes etc. This is just a warmer really to get them recalling information about natural disasters. Scenarios These are invented stories that you can tell the children to get them to examine ‘what makes something a natural ...

Age: 8 + Themes: planets, inference, modal verbs Stimulus NASA scientists have found a planet deep in space that looks like ours. They call it Other World. They want to send astronauts there but it would take 100 years to get there and 100 years to get back so they can’t.  They decide to send a probe to gather data about the ...

By Tim Beardmore-Gray Background to session This enquiry was written for a Yr5 class that had lead a previous enquiry into exploring the EQ: “What features would a robot have to have in order to be a real human?” They had expressed a desire to explore this further the following week. Engagement was a given and we could dive qui...