Philosophy for Children (P4C) is a programme that gives our children the opportunity to think and reason about how themselves and others relate to the world around them.

P4C is not a subject, it is a pedagogy; a way of teaching and learning. The purpose of P4C is to help our children become more skillful thinkers and for our very young children, it is the beginning of the process of encouraging them to think.

At YCIS, P4C inquiries are held at least once a week in each ECE and Primary Learning Community. In these inquiries, a stimulus is chosen and the children identify concepts within the stimulus, which they will later use to write a question. This question provides the basis for discussion. P4C is also used as a tool to engage children and deepen their thinking across all areas of the curriculum, with smaller P4C activities being used to scaffold learning.

P4C questions and activities are also included each week as part of the homework as a way to engage children in philosophical discussion with their families. This week we also facilitated a P4C inquiry with our YCIS parents to further strengthen the link between home and school.

We look forward to having more opportunities to get philosophical with the whole YCIS community next year!