This submission is made on behalf of SAPERE, a charitable company dedicated to advancing the teaching and learning methodology Philosophy for Children in the UK.
Executive summary
- Education is not just a preparation for life – it is part of life.
- The purpose of education is to inculcate a balance of the skills, knowledge and dispositions that will allow all children of all ages to flourish in the current and future spheres of their life: personally, socially, morally, culturally, professionally, economically and as citizens. It should encourage children to become lifelong learners. The twelve aims set out in the Cambridge Primary Review are suggested as an encapsulation of this purpose, and are equally applicable to secondary education.[1]
- The full richness of this purpose is not captured by current accountability frameworks and as a result, despite good intentions, is not fostered in current provision in schools. Defining the purpose will allow new and better measures to be developed.
- In addition, without a broad definition there is a risk that education is treated as purely instrumental such that society’s stake in it is expressed in a drive for direct economic benefits. SAPERE believes that if narrowed to prioritise these benefits alone, education will be found lacking. A successful democracy needs more. It needs of course, the basic skills of numeracy and literacy and a range of domain-specific knowledge, but it also needs people who are pro-active and productive andwho are independent minded, socially engaged, responsible and thoughtful citizens.
- To achieve this our society needs young people who are trained to think for themselves and to think with others: critically, creatively, caringly and collaboratively.
- This is the dialogic approach that underpins SAPERE’s Philosophy for Children; a pedagogy taught to 3,000 teachers a year in the UK and which now has more than 60 award schools across the country. It is an evidence-based approach with a growing body of research in the UK and internationally that demonstrates wide-ranging benefits including increased cognitive ability; improved wellbeing; enhanced social skills; and resilience to extremism.
[1] ‘The 12 aims of Cambridge Primary Review http://cprtrust.org.uk/about_cprt/aims/
Here is a copy of the full report: Submission of SAPERE on the Purpose of Education
SAPERE P4C 