Metacognition - Philosophy for Children (P4C) Collection (x20) [Metacognitive Tool 14/20]

Metacognition and philosophy go hand-in-hand because metacognition involves thinking deeply about the nature of thought, learning, knowledge & the mind. For this reason we have put together a comprehensive whole-school philosophy resource whose sole purpose is to make students think deeply about life.

This product comprises twenty philosophical debate and discussion sessions, the following topics are covered:

1. Animal Rights & Caring for Animals
2. Art & The Nature of Beauty
3. Big Issues in Politics
4. British Values
5. Caring For The Environment
6. Celebrating Other Cultures & Religions
7. Christian Philosophy & Ethics
8. Citizenship
9. Computers, Robots & Artificial Intelligence
10. Epistemology
11. Ethics & Morality
12. Friendship, Exclusion & Bullying
13. Literacy, Reading & The Value of Literature
14. Metaphysics & The Nature of Reality
15. Moral & Spiritual Development
16. Space, Aliens & The Universe
17. The Biggest Questions in Philosophy
18. The Philosophy of History
19. The Philosophy of Maths
20. “Who Am I?” & The Philosophy of Identity

We hope this collection covers all of the bases in relation to the main fields and central debates of philosophy.

Each session features a variety of debate and discussion prompts. The ‘Philosophy Boxes Method’ presents students with a set of ‘mystery boxes’, when a student selects one of the boxes they are presented with 1 of 21 discussion/debate activities: each uses 1 of 8 different formats. The presentation has integrated AfL so that teachers can test knowledge at any point in the lesson.

There are 10 different plenary/assessments slides to choose from: an integrated menu means teachers can switch to and from AfL tasks easily and at any time. The design is colourful, animated, fun and engaging: all activities require movement and teachers can decide whether students are expressing their ideas purely verbally or by using post-it notes.

The nature of the design makes these sessions highly flexible: each PowerPoint file can be used for short sessions (5-10 minutes) or much longer sessions (up to 2 hours!) - it allows for classroom practitioners to be flexible and adaptable. It can, therefore, be used in lessons or as a tutor-time activity. Most sessions can be used multiple times.

This is an ideal resource to bring P4C (Philosophy for Children) into your school: the range of topics means there’s ‘something for every one’ and that the cross-curricular connections are very broad.

We hold that engaging students in philosophical discussion, debates and thinking is one of the best ways to enhance their critical-thinking skills and Higher-Order Thinking Skills: the metacogntive benefits of philosophy in schools should not be underestimated!