Our bespoke Level One course, offered in partnership with Wikimedia UK, supports the teaching of critical media literacy, through Philosophical Enquiry.
Thoughtful Media Literacy
This course is open for booking and running online from November 4th to December 9th.
The way young people encounter information has changed fundamentally. AI-generated content, algorithmic feeds, and the rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation mean that traditional approaches to ‘evaluating sources’ are no longer enough.
At the same time, schools and colleges are under increasing pressure to demonstrate how students develop critical thinking, oracy, and independent judgement – skills that are central to the direction of curriculum reform in England.
Thoughtful Media Literacy is a bespoke Level One course that addresses this challenge directly. Grounded in Philosophy for Children and Communities (P4C), the course offers a distinctive, dialogue-based approach to media literacy – moving beyond surface-level skills to develop students’ capacity to think carefully, question deeply, and engage meaningfully with complex issues.
Designed for secondary and further education teachers with no prior experience of P4C, the course provides the essential knowledge, practical strategies, and classroom-ready resources needed to embed media literacy across the curriculum.
Developed in partnership with Wikimedia UK, the course supports teachers to help students:
- evaluate information rigorously in an age of AI and misinformation
- recognise bias, perspective, and manipulation
- articulate and defend their ideas with clarity and confidence
- engage in thoughtful, evidence-based dialogue with others
This course strengthens teaching and learning across subjects – including English, PSHE, and vocational pathways – while supporting key priorities around oracy, student wellbeing, and preparedness for life beyond education.
As the education landscape shifts towards 2028 and beyond, this course offers a practical, curriculum-ready way to ensure students are not just informed, but equipped to think.
Successful participants receive Thoughtful Level One accreditation.
Contact us if you would like this course in your school or are interested in attending an open online course.
Course Structure and Content
Certification
Our beginner practitioner Level One course now comprises 6 trainer-led modules, which provide attendees with a certificate of attendance: Experience, Theorise, Plan, Facilitate, Evaluate, and Apply P4C.
Then there are two self-led optional modules, completed outside of this trainer-led time: Practise P4C and Evidence P4C, which include completing and submitting a practice-based assessment, providing you with a certificate of achievement once reviewed by our trainer.
Each module is 90-120 minutes and can be delivered flexibly.
Module One - Experience P4C
The questions at the heart of this module are:
- What is P4C and what is its relevance to media literacy?
- What is it like to philosophise about media?
We will be looking at this module through the lens of Knowledge and Truth: How do we know what is real or reliable in media?
Key question for students: What’s true?
- Knowledge, belief, truth, un/certainty.
- Trust, evidence, authority, credibility.
- Credulity, criticality and conspiracy thinking.
- Misinformation / disinformation.
- Perspective, positionality and interpretation.
- Objectivity vs bias.
- Reality vs simulation (deep fakes etc.)
Module Two - Theorise P4C
The questions at the heart of this module are:
- What is P4C method, and how can I use it to teach media literacy?
- What is P4C content, and where can I find it in media literacy?
We will be looking at this module through the lens of Self and Identity: Who we are (and who we become) through media.
Key question for students: Who am I?
- Identity formation online and offline.
- Authenticity vs performance.
- Self-presentation and personas (e.g. profiles and avatars).
- Wellbeing and mental health (e.g. body image, cyberbullying).
- Privacy.
- Attention and addiction.
- Being human, embodiment, humans vs machines, AI anthropomorphism.
Module Three - Plan P4C
The questions at the heart of this module are:
- What makes a good P4C stimulus for media literacy enquiry?
- How do I plan P4C enquiries and exercises that promote media literacy?
We will be looking at this module through the lens of Technology and Mediation: How media and people are shaped by technology and systems.
Key question for students: How does media shape us?
- Algorithms and curation of information.
- AI and automation.
- Platforms and design (e.g. feeds, likes, user experience).
- Data collection and tracking.
- Monetization (e.g. adverts, personal data use, the attention economy)
Module Four - Facilitate P4C
The questions at the heart of this module are:
- What are the aims of P4C facilitation and how do they support media literacy?
- What questions do facilitators of media literacy enquiry ask, and why?
We will be looking at this module through the lens of Communication and Relationships: How we interact with others through media.
Key question for students: How should we treat each other?
- On and offline friendships, relationships and communities.
- Private and public communication (e.g. netiquette).
- Social norms and pressure (likes, trends, FOMO, cancel culture).
- Civil debate, controversy and conflict.
- Empathy and misunderstanding.
- Online crimes (trolling, cyberstalking, doxxing, cyberbullying, fraud, impersonation, and non-consensual sharing of intimate images)
Module Five - Evaluate P4C
The questions at the heart of this module are:
- What is valuable about P4C, what value does it have for media literacy?
- How do learners and educators evaluate P4C in a media literacy context?
We will be looking at this module through the lens of Society and Power: How media structures and controls collective life.
Key question for students: Who has power?
- Citizenship and democracy (e.g. citizen science, political canvassing, election rigging).
- Privacy and surveillance (e.g. data collection and consent, targeted advertising).
- Propaganda, persuasion, manipulation and radicalisation.
- Regulation, moderation and censorship.
- Influence (e.g. owners and editors of large media orgs, algorithmic influence, online influencers).
- Polarization and echo chambers.
- Inequality and access (digital divides – economic, generational etc.).
- Environmental sustainability (e.g. water and energy consumption of AI data centres)
Module Six - Apply P4C
The questions at the heart of this module are:
- What relevance does P4C have to my media literacy teaching?
- How can P4C meet the specific media literacy needs of my learners?
We will be looking at this module through the lens of Ethics and Values: What is valuable, right, fair, and responsible in media?
Key question for students: What is right?
- The promise and possibilities of media (e.g. education, connection, expression, freedom).
- Bias, stereotypes, representation (e.g. bias baked into AI).
- Ownership, creativity, intellectual property (e.g. remix culture).
- Autonomy and consent (e.g. ‘sharenting’).
- Digital rights (e.g. the right ‘to be forgotten’).
- Harm (cyber bullying, social media addiction, data-harvesting, scamming, phishing ‘revenge porn’ ‘suicide contagion’).
- Accountability: corporate, national, institutional and individual.
- Justice and fairness (e.g. unequal access to internet, information and digital skills, blackouts).
