In the early days of doing Philosophy for Children, it can be tempting to give questions to students. Please, though, have faith that your pupils are capable of asking interesting questions themselves! It takes a bit of time and practice but by around age six, children really can make up their own.

I passionately believe that we should value children’s questions.

Yes, it would be quicker to give them a question to discuss, and perhaps our own question would be more grammatically correct. But as we all know, successful learners ask questions – so we need to provide opportunities for students to develop questioning skills. P4C is one such opportunity.

Here are some questions from a class of seven-year-olds: