P4C / Increasing % of higher levels at end of KS2
Name of School: St Michael at Bowes Contact person Tony Thamia - tony.thamia@btopenworld.com
The focus of the project is:
The focus of the research is to determine if Philosophy for children (P4C) can improve the speaking, listening, thinking and social skills of our children. In addition, to see if P4C can improve pupil morale and attitudes towards each other and to learning. We will work closely with Forty Hill School to organise training for staff, observe each other implementing the P4C and have joint termly assessment sessions for chosen pupils. We also hope to have particular P4C group for our G&T pupils at St Michael at Bowes.
Describe how your proposed project is innovative and explain how it ensures the development of excellence?
St. Michael at Bowes is a church junior school in an area with a high percentage of EAL in a socially demanding area. Our main problem is that pupils find communication between themselves, as well with adults very difficult. Their ability to look at problems (social, mathematical, science, literacy etc), communicate ideas and thoughts is very limited. This is not just a problem for our less able pupils but may in some ways be more obvious in our more able pupils. These pupils have a high level of information retrieval but lack the skills to understand and articulate at a higher level. Their ability to listen, comprehend and articulate replies is not sufficiently developed. Philosophy for learning offers a novel way to develop our staff to be able to tackle this aspect in class through PSHE.. We will be using the expertise of our partner school and other experts to help us offer these children a life skill.
What is the time frame/plan of action for your project?
September, organise training for the staff and select pupils to monitor. Outline plan for PSHE based P4C. Undertake baseline assessment (video and written).
October: Visit Partner school, observe and hold discussions.
November: first joint assessment at Partner school.
February: second joint assessment:
June third and final joint assessment. Discussion of findings, analysis and report.
What are your process of evidence collection and evaluation to measure impact (methodology)?
1. video at regular intervals, observations of targeted pupils, feedback from pupils, written assessment involving thinking task and teacher assessment of attitude, behaviour and social skills. These to be compared between the two schools.
What outcomes are you expecting – how could these be demonstrated/shared?
P4C should improve children’s attitudes to learning, develop listening, speaking and thinking skills. These should be demonstrable using the techniques outlined above.
If successful P4C will be shared with the whole school and hopefully introduced into the whole school next year.
