At Blessed Sacrament we strive to help our pupils to be effective, critical and creative thinkers and to take responsibility for their own learning in a caring and collaborative environment.

We do this by providing an enquiry based curriculum and Philosophy for Children (P4C) where pupils are encouraged to ask questions and find the answers through discussion. Thus, developing the ability to recognize differences and explore these constructively.

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We create a caring classroom situation so children…..

• learn to listen to and respect each other

• make links between matters of personal concern such as love, growing up, friendship, bullying and fairness, and more general philosophical issues such as change, personal identity, free will, space, time and truth.

• are encouraged to challenge and explore the beliefs and values of others, and to develop their own views

• experience quiet moments of thinking and reflection

• learn to be clear in their thinking and to make responsible and more deliberate judgements

• learn to be more thoughtful by basing their decisions and actions on reasons

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P4c skills used in the curriculum

Learning to speak

Enchance speaking and listening

Thinking time

Teach turn taking and patience

Conversational skills

Positive body language

Develop respect for opinions

Make connections with ideas and concepts

Observational skills and memory skills

Questioning skills

Reasoning

Reflection

Collaboration

Social and emotional development

Reasoning in maths

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Discussion Time

Why not try discussing some of these questions at home.

Don’t forget to give reasons for your opinions

Would you rather………..

• Be a cat or a dog?

• Be a monkey in a cage or a goldfish in a bowl?

• Live 200 years in the past or 200 years in the future?

• Swim like a fish or fly like a bird?

• Would you choose to eat tadpoles on toast or spider ice cream?

• Would you choose a pet lion or a pet dinosaur?

• Would you choose no television or no toys?

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Here is a list of texts which are good for discussion with children of any age.

Try reading some at home and hearing you children’s thoughts.

• Where the wild things are by Maurice Sendak

• Voices in the park by Antony Browne

• The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

• A squash and a squeeze by Julia Donaldson

• Would You Rather? By John Burningham

• Tin Forest by Helen Ward

• Oh, the Places You’ll go by Dr Seuss

• Wilfred Gordon MacDonald Partridge by Mem Fox