This week, we wanted to send out a session we’ve been using a lot recently, inspired by something we first shared in February 2019. There are 9,472 of you who were already subscribers back then, but we hope you won’t mind being sent a revamped version!
It’s on the theme of “evacuees”, a common topic in connection with The Second World War or books such as, “Goodnight, Mr. Tom”. 2.5 million children were evacuated from major cities into the countryside to be safer from the expected bombing. As with other historical topics, it makes sense to start with the historic and then look for connections to present day situations, in this case the issue of unaccompanied child refugees.
Context
It was never made compulsory for parents to send their children away, and only 47% of eligible children were evacuated. It was eventually made compulsory for those in the countryside that had space to accept evacuees, whether they had any interest in raising children or not – but it was never made compulsory to send your children away. The government paid keep for the children.
The 2026 version of the Powerpoint presentation, downloadable by clicking here, has a few pictures to set the scene. Get the children to work through the prompts, see, wonder, guess, feel on the first picture (observing, questioning, inferring, reacting). If they’ve not done detailed work on picture stimuli before, you might want to pause after each stage to share ideas. Then after you reveal the context you can show the other pictures for context.
Starting Positions
Once you’ve established the context using the first three pictures, set up for “Starting Positions”. Get the children in two rows, facing one another, and allocate a point of view for each side to argue. The questions become more challenging, and at the same time you move from pairs to fours to eights.
In pairs, as children who might be evacuated to the countryside – Would you want be go? (A’s argue yes, B’s no)
In fours, as pairs of parents talking over the garden fence – Would you send your children away? (A’s argue no, B’s yes)
In eights, as cabinet ministers making the decision – Should the government make it compulsory for people to accept children? (A’s argue yes, B’s no)
Looking Back with Hindsight
It’s a worthwhile extension to the thinking to consider what the right choice was with the benefit of hindsight. The best available figure for child deaths in the Blitz was 7,736 out of perhaps 1.75 million children who remained in the affected areas – does that change what would have been the right decision? There are of course connections to be made with current and recent conflicts. Gaza has seen three times the child casualties, over 20,000 from a child population of around 1 million.
Across the Curriculum
The final slide in the PPT has some other examples of how you might use the same structure in other topics. You may or may not get them thinking “in role” but where you can, it definitely adds something.
What’s on in the Philosoverse?
We’ve mostly been in East Anglia recently – Tom has been busy scheduling visits to fourteen host schools for workshops, training and competitions as part of our collaboration with Essex County Council’s Year of Opportunity. Jason was working with headteachers from an heads’ association and running a twiight at Hadleigh High School looking at oracy activities for form time and across the curriculum.
Next week, Jason will be working with Oxford University’s outreach team, running a repeat of a “train the presenter” workshop which has had a huge impact on their practice. If you know anybody who works in university outreach, or any other team who go into schools for one-off workshops, we seem to have the formula for what can be a tricky job – get in touch! Then he’s off to Prague for the annual SOPHIA gathering of philosophy for children enthusiasts while Tom continues to plan for our upcoming summer activity-week work, and field the flurry of enquiries for oracy training for September onwards that always accelerates at this time of year.