Barbara Vidion
on 26 January 2010 at 19:17
Following the staff training we did at the school in Norwich,
we returned a week later to carry out demonstration
philosophy4children lessons throughout the school. Dot and I
were delighted to find that some teachers, during the
week between our visits, had run a philosophical enquiry
with their classes!
We had a great day in the eight classes (Years 3 to 6).
Children, teachers and support staff were all very
enthusiastic, here are some of the staff comments:
"It allowed me to see a teachable structure with a
class, how time needs to be given for pupils to formulate
their answers, how children respond to each other and their
ideas."
"Excellent modelling of flow of a session. It allowed me
to pay attention to the class and listen to their
ideas."
"Clear expectations set out to the children. I liked the
content and the re-focusing techniques and questions"
"It helped children to think about their behaviour and
how they should talk to each other."
Barbara Vidion
on 12 January 2010 at 18:39
It has been a vey busy start to the term for
Philosophy4Children with more and more schools asking for
training in how to use and develop philosophy with their
children. Monday saw us working in a large junior school in
Norwich with a very enthusiastic staff group. We are looking
forward vey much to going back next week and spending the
whole day working with the children.
Dot Lenton
on 7 January 2010 at 20:09
On a snowy morning in North Norfolk we had an excellent
session working with a large group of enthusiastic primary
school teachers and teaching assistants. Once we had the
technology working everything went well! The focus of the
training was looking at the way in which Philosophy4Children
can be utilised to improve children's writing. It was
excellent to revisit this work, as it formed part of the
action research that Barbara and I had undertaken for the
Thinking Schools, Thinking Children project initiated by
Norfolk Local Education Authority. The staff were not short
of ideas which ranged from diary writing to hot seating and
play scripts.