Theme(s): Thinking skills
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‘Philosophy for Children’: deepening learning for 10 to 12 year old
pupils
Author(s):
KJ Topping and S Trickey
Publisher:
British Journal of Educational Psychology (2007), 77, pp. 271-288
[Original title: Collaborative philosophical enquiry for school children: Cognitive effects at 1012 years]
How can a collaborative thinking skills approach improve pupils’
learning?
The idea that intelligence is a fixed entity, that children are either good at learning a particular
subject or not, has long been challenged. The work of people like Howard Gardner (1999)
and Daniel Goleman (2005) have helped to widen ideas about intelligence to see it as
multifaceted and dynamic.
This Scottish study explored the impact of a thinking skills intervention (Thinking through
Philosophy), based in collaborative, interactive dialogue, on primary pupils’ learning. In
particular the authors aimed to investigate whether learning gains made by pupils during
work on verbal tasks could be transferred to learning in non-verbal areas. The study was
based in four primary schools in Clackmannanshire Education Authority, Scotland, and
included pupils from very disadvantaged backgrounds. The positive results of the
programme for young people’s learning were wide ranging. The study found that children
who participated in Philosophy for Children lessons improved their numeracy, verbal and
non-verbal skills to a greater degree than those who did not.
The research is relevant to practitioners in primary and secondary schools and curriculum
designers who are interested in thinking skills approaches to enhance pupils' learning.
Practitioners interested in classroom talk for learning will also find the study informative.
Keywords: Scotland; primary schools; secondary schools; pupils; classroom teachers;
whole class teaching; collaboration; questioning; thinking skills; cognitive development;
teaching methods
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Contents
What impact did ‘thinking through philosophy’ lessons have on pupils’
learning?
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What does a ‘thinking through philosophy’ lesson look like?
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What professional development did teachers need to deliver ‘thinking through
philosophy’ lessons?
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Where does the evidence come from?
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What are the implications?
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Where can I find out more?
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Page 3
What impact did ‘thinking through philosophy’ lessons have on
pupils’ learning?
Differences in test scores before and after the intervention showed significant gains for pupils
who took part in the programme compared to those who did not.
Specifically the findings demonstrated:
 improvements on number tasks, verbal and non-verbal reasoning tasks;
 largest improvement was on performance in non-verbal reasoning tasks;
 pupils of all abilities benefited from the intervention - middle level performers
benefited most. The ones who benefited least were the ones who were high
performers at the start of the programme;
 gains were consistent across schools and pupils – both boys and girls showed
significant gains in post-tests; and
 post-test scores for the control groups were lower than their pre-test ones.
Classroom observation revealed that teachers delivering the programme increased their use
of open-ended questions. Pupils also increased their participation in classroom discussion
and demonstrated a greater use of critical reasoning.
The authors suggest the evidence supports the idea that pupils were able to transfer thinking
skills learnt through dialogue to non-verbal and numerical reasoning tasks.
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What did the ‘thinking through philosophy’ lessons look like?
The intervention was based on ‘Philosophy for Children’ (Lipman, 1981) but used more
contemporary materials than the original approach (Cleghorn, 2002). Teachers built the onehour lessons on core elements including:
 a focusing exercise to relax the children and engage their attention;
 linking to previous work to establish a starting point for thinking;
 introducing a stimulus for the new activity, usually a teacher reading a poem or story
with visuals;
 pair working to enable children to familiarise themselves with the subject of enquiry;
 dialogue in groups of six in which the teacher encouraged the children to stick to a
number of rules for dialogue (see below);
 closure, where the children were encouraged to reflect on their thinking; and
 thought for the week, where the children followed up the activity by relating what they
learned to other situations.
The core feature of the approach was developing a community of enquiry. This is
characterised by open-ended questioning by the teacher, challenging the children to think
independently and promoting teacher-pupil and pupil-pupil dialogue.
To create and maintain the community of enquiry approach the teacher encouraged the
children to follow a number of rules:
 being willing to communicate their views about the topic;
 supporting their views with reasons;




listening respectfully to others;
indicating politely their agreement or disagreement with the views expressed by
others;
providing alternative viewpoints;
reaching a shared conclusion.
(The rules for dialogue are similar to the rules of dialogue in Wegerif and Mercer's
Exploratory Talk which we have featured in other digests, see Where can I find out more?)
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What professional development did teachers need to deliver
‘thinking through philosophy’ lessons?
In order to ensure that the programme was implemented accurately the teachers undertook
an extended professional development programme. This was led by the headteacher of a
local primary school and two senior teachers experienced in classroom enquiry. During the
first 12 months of the initiative the teachers who implemented the programme in their
classrooms received 10-12 hours of professional development. This included:
 one day of training prior to the intervention; and
 observation of specialist teachers using the strategies, followed by debriefing with the
specialists.
Each term the participating teachers explored their experiences collaboratively in a two-hour
after-school professional development session. The specialist teachers offered further
support on a call-out basis.
The authors believed the costs in terms of money and resources for the programme were
low, when weighed against the gains the pupils made.
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Where does the evidence come from?
The study participants were 105 intervention pupils in four schools in one Scottish
educational authority. The pupils were of mixed socio-economic status but the sample
contained some very disadvantaged pupils. The schools were not randomly selected but the
actual participants were. The study used a non-intervention group of 72 pupils in another two
schools in the same authority as a control group that was matched with the intervention
group.
Both groups were pre- and post-tested with a pre-validated Cognitive Abilities Test (see
Where can I find out more?). The tests covered the areas:
 verbal skills – verbal classification, sentence completion and word relations (e.g. old
and new);
 numerical skills – identifying links between pairs of numbers, working out rules that
link numbers in a series and building simple equations linking numbers; and
 non-verbal reasoning skills – classifying figures, recognising how figures are related
to each other and predicting shapes of disguised figures.
Video-recording and analysis of classroom interactions was used to supplement the test
data. The difference between the two groups was that the intervention group received one
hour per week collaborative enquiry for 16 months while the control children followed normal
classroom experiences during that time.
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What are the implications?
In completing this digest the authors began to ask the following questions about implications
for practitioners:

in order to guide children in creating a productive community of enquiry the teachers
set out explicit rules of engagement, including the need to provide alternative
viewpoints and to reach a shared conclusion. How explicit are you with your pupils
about how best to communicate during group work? It might be useful to discuss with
them the things that make for a good discussion, and then display the results on
reference cards or a poster.

An important element of the ‘thinking through philosophy’ lesson was the time
teachers gave children to reflect on how their thinking had moved on, and to link their
learning with other situations. These activities helped children understand the
contingent nature of knowledge and the importance of being open to new ideas and
arguments. In what ways could you support this kind of reflection among your pupils?
You could, for example, ask them to note down their beliefs and/or knowledge about
a particular topic at the beginning of a session/term, and use this as a reference point
later on.
School leaders might like to consider some of the following implications:

the extended nature of the CPD provided teachers with the opportunity to embed the
new practice, reflect on and refine their approach through termly meetings, and draw
on specialist support as it was needed. When planning CPD for your own staff, what
are your expectations for how quickly they will be able to adopt new practice? Is there
more you can do to provide support mechanisms over time to ensure they have the
opportunity for sustained and deep professional learning and to embed new practice?
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Where can I find out more?
Other digests
Widening access to educational opportunities through teaching children how to reason
together
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/themes/speakandlisten/wegerif_access/
Talk, talk, talk: Teaching and learning in whole class discourse
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/themes/speakandlisten/talktalk/
Improving the quality of pupils’ talk and thinking during group work
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/themes/English/improvingthequality/
Other research
GTC RoM summary Effective talk in the primary classroom, accessible at:
http://www.gtce.org.uk/research/romtopics/rom_teachingandlearning/effective_talk_sep06/
GTC RoM summary Raising achievement through group work, accessible at:
http://www.gtce.org.uk/research/romtopics/rom_managementoflearning/groupwork_nov06/
National Teacher Research Panel summary How can we encourage pupil dialogue in
collaborative group work? accessible at:
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/ntrp/lib/pdf/seal.pdf
Resources
Clackmannanshire Council - For updates on the extensive Philosophy with Children
programme.
www.clacksweb.co.uk
Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC)
http://cehs.montclair.edu/academic/iapc/
Philosophy with Children
http://www.aude-education.co.uk/philosophy.htm
Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education.
www.sapere.org.uk
Thinking Together
http://www.thinkingtogether.org.uk/
References
Cleghorn, P. (2002) Thinking through philosophy Blackburn, England: Educational Printing
Services.
Gardner, H. (1999) Intelligence reframed. New York: Basic Books.
Goleman, D. (2005) Emotional intelligence (10th anniversary edition) New York: Bantam
Books.
Lipman, M. (1981). Philosophy for children. In A. L. Costa (ed.), Developing minds: Programs
for teaching thinking (Vol. 2, pp. 35–38). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and
Curricular Development.
K. J. Topping and S. Trickey (2007) Collaborative philosophical inquiry for schoolchildren:
Cognitive gains at 2-year follow-up. British Journal of Educational Psychology (2007), 77,
787–796
K.J. Topping , S. Trickey (2007) Impact of philosophical enquiry on school students’
interactive behaviour. Thinking Skills and Creativity 2 (2007) 73–84