P4C in SEN Hub

My name is Izzie Kirk, and I have been practising P4C for nearly a decade. I have worked in two schools across the multi-academy trust. I am a class teacher and the P4C lead in my setting. Within this role, I support practitioners with their philosophical practice in the classroom, educate trainee teachers on P4C and review the impact of P4C throughout both key stages, including planning, involvement, assessment and progression. I have been involved with Thoughtful across many city-wide projects and look forward to continuing my own progress in P4C. I have become a Silver Fellow with Thoughtful due to my interest and passion for philosophical practice in schools. I have thoroughly enjoyed their training sessions and have used the guidance and resources to plan and share enquiries with my colleagues. As part of my role, I have supported SEN children on EHCPs with the development of their oracy skills. I continue to champion the voices of children, particularly our most vulnerable pupils, by giving them access to spoken opportunities wherever possible.

The skills required for a successful philosophical enquiry include effective communication practices such as active listening, relevant responses and showing genuine connection to stimuli, in addition to empathy and curiosity to motivate a sense of belonging within a community of trust. In a loaded, post-COVID curriculum, opportunities to learn through talk are sparse and often abandoned to prioritise more traditional subjects; however, the use of conversation in a collaborative environment does enrich pupils’ understanding of the world and therefore enhances their learning potential. An area that interested me was the consideration of how P4C could be adapted for children with additional needs. SEN children may find aspects of P4C challenging, given the level of social skills and general knowledge they are required to utilise for a basic enquiry, and many practitioners may assume these conversational skills are guaranteed before a session, but this is not always the case, even in a mainstream classroom. The demands and barriers that our SEN young people face in a curriculum that reduces the prospect of communicative learning is an area I have sought to improve across my setting.

Before starting a project to support the SEN Hub at my school with P4C, I ensured I had a good rapport with each child in that setting, knew their interests, hobbies and speech abilities whilst practising other low-pressure activities with them in which only involvement was encouraged, not the thinking/method 4Cs of P4C (Critical, Creative, Caring & Collaborative thinking). Seeing these children enjoy the experiences, verbalise their delight and show compassion and resilience with one another demonstrated that they had the necessary tools to begin a basic P4C session in which they could gain meaning from the experience and value one another’s input. Naturally, they displayed collaboration and care, already showing some of the P4C thinking Cs without me having to address them specifically. They felt in control and safe to orally and imaginatively experiment with adults and other pupils whom they knew well. A crucial step I took was working closely with the SEN hub leader to discuss which children were more confident with vocalising their initial opinions on a matter, who could therefore stimulate the beginnings of a philosophical discussion and inspire others, those who might need sensory breaks to process the information from the enquiry and which children would need clear, set rules and boundaries in order to participate respectfully in a welcoming but more structured space than what they might be used to experiencing. Her expertise allowed us to co plan and facilitate an effective group session where all children learnt, spoke and achieved an outcome as a group, and each could develop personal thought.

To make the learning relevant and inclusive for the SEN children, I planned a Black History Month enquiry, which I had also done for each year group throughout the school, so their outcomes were similar to every class and could be celebrated as such. This gave their philosophical experience the same level of importance as the mainstream classes and evidenced how much, as a staff, we regarded their unique outlook. I then considered the interests of the group and knew they collectively loved football and music. With this influence, I decided to introduce the challenging topic of racism through these concepts with something they could comprehend at a level that was appropriate for them. I wondered what sort of answers the children would give throughout the session and realised that open questions could lead to some anxieties, so the starter activities were basic thumbs up thumbs down polls and fill in the space with a word sentences; this meant the children could decide what they agreed upon internally, and those more capable could expand on their answers. To support this, I created sentence starters with visuals for them to use at their discretion. With a plan in place to build the four Cs gradually, scaffolds to foster independent thought and adaptations to meet the group’s needs, the session was a success.

Some notable moments for me were when the children were finding a sense of their own ethos and illustrated this in different ways. Firstly, the children were visibly excited by the clear rules ‘good listening, kind response, get involved’ shown through clapping their hands and saying ‘yes’. Then, the children were shown some photographs during the Civil Rights Movement including the bus boycott and other protests. From these, the children could decide which evidence showed ‘good choices’ and which showed ‘bad choices’, categorising accordingly with justifications. Using the support, some more confident children could explain why the separation on the bus was bad but why shaking hands was good. After this, I introduced the reason why Black History Month was important by using football as an example, whereby some black football players were mistreated for missing goals. This motivated a prominent part of the enquiry for me; a young boy made an ‘oh’ sound, displayed a visibly upset face and put his face down for a few moments. Here, I could witness this child empathising and understanding the significance of the concept of racism; he was beginning to align his morals with a real-life scenario and gain authentic emotion from this event. I was concerned that exposure to upsetting content could have negatively impacted the session, but this response was considerate, heartfelt and supported the child’s knowledge of Black History Month. After this, I played them Get Up, Stand Up by Bob Marley and gave them lyrics with images for key words. I was pleased by how many times the children wanted to listen to the song and could even join in with the key lyrics and make actions like putting a hand in the air, showing some understanding of the themes of celebration and perseverance within the song. After this, I made the statement that Bob Marley had implied throughout the song, ‘don’t give up the fight for equality’. Most children put their thumbs up but one put them down. I questioned their decision. They said, ‘fighting bad, it’s never okay fighting.’ I was so impressed by the way this child had interpreted the language following a different perspective, and it opened an alternative path of enquiry which allowed the other children to think differently and question his idea. They could agree with his comment, but they liked the idea of fighting for a good cause. The children were then given the opportunity in their final thoughts to think what they could do to make the world a better place. Some participants made decisions based on their own world like being kinder to siblings or listening to teachers, but some thought in a whole world context and said they wanted to make the world cleaner or have faith in their God. I was not only moved by their passion and eagerness to share, but by their support of each other, evidenced through their words ‘yes’ ’good idea’ ’I like that’ or their thumbs up, smiles and clapping. During the evaluation process, children were encouraged to consider what they enjoyed, learnt and if they would do it again. A moment that the SEN leader of the hub found particularly significant was the contribution of one of the higher needs children. This child consistently exhibited anxious behaviours, was fixated on specific activities and had limited vocabulary; she stayed in the room during the session for her own regulation, but there was no expectation for her to participate. Even though it may have seemed initially that this child was not engaged with the learning, she had the opportunity to produce something and willingly took a piece of paper and pencil to draw a picture of a bus. This unexpected involvement conveyed some understanding of the philosophical concepts throughout the session. The SEN Hub leader was overwhelmed by this outcome and couldn’t believe the child had gained relevant knowledge of Black History Month and felt safe enough to creatively and appropriately express herself.

To conclude, I would encourage all P4C facilitators and teaching practitioners to have inclusion at the heart of each enquiry, as all children’s voices have value to behold. The children showed reason, could speak clearly and rationally in an emotionally secure environment and make connections between language, evidence and experience. They embraced the opportunity to learn about something contextually relevant and appreciated one another’s efforts. A key message from P4C training is anticipate, don’t legislate, and this message allowed me to make adaptations promptly when another idea could be explored. The children had a common goal of understanding fairness and equality and, through their eyes, saw the world in different ways; they offered contrasting insights and honest responses which inspired more inclusive planning for future sessions.

With special thanks to Rebecca Fleetwood, SEN practitioner