PUPILS and teachers at a school in Oxford are celebrating after being the first school in the county to win a highly sought-after philosophy award.

St Nicholas’ Primary School in Old Marston has received a bronze award in philosophy, with children as young as six exploring and discussing meaningful topics.

For one hour every week pupils discuss P4C (philosophy for children) topics such as “is it always good to go to war?” and “should you still respect your role model if they do something bad?”

Headteacher Rachel Crouch said the children absolutely love it.

She said: “We’ve seen P4C having a transforming effect on children’s relationships, confidence and thinking skills. Their listening skills have also improved dramatically too as they are very interested in what each other has to say.

“There are often very different ideas about a chosen question. Teachers have been amazed by the profound questions which children come up with.

“There is no right or wrong answer. So in some lessons, when it’s usually the brightest students who put their hands up and answer the questions, with P4C we are seeing some of the other students answer too.”

The award was presented to the school by Sapere, an organisation promoting philosophy for children, colleges and communities. The three accolades – bronze, silver and gold – celebrate a school’s progress in establishing high quality P4C.

A school starts with bronze and then moves on to silver and gold as it takes time to develop its learning, teaching and culture. The aim is to receive bronze after one year, silver after two and gold after three.

Mrs Crouch added: “In a P4C lesson children can decide which question they want to be asked. They get to watch a film clip, see a picture or hear a story and then they get into groups and create a question. The class then votes for the best question.

“We are well on our way to receiving silver. We have been doing P4C for about a year now.”

To celebrate the accolade and find out more about philosophy, an expert lecturer in the subject from Oxford University will be visiting pupils at St Nicholas’ on October 16.