Philosophical enquiry skills can be developed with children at any age and stage. It involves exploring beliefs, values, practices and traditions through critical thinking, reflection and analysis.

When I was visiting The Coombes School, Sue Humphries led a silent walk with two groups of children – a Year 1/2 class and a Year 6 class, thus demonstrating the open-ended nature of this activity which is a good springboard into reflection and thinking.

I stumbled upon this activity by accident. I happened to wander past this child sitting on his own away from anyone else. When I asked what he was doing, he jumped up and pointed the way down the path to find the rest of the class.

Sue had asked the children to line up silently behind her. At regular intervals she tapped the children and indicated where they were to sit quietly.

As the photo shows the children are spaced out quite far away from each other. Too far away to have discussions without having too shout very loud! The child below chatted to me about what she was expected to do.

When Sue, the teacher, passed the child again, she motioned to him to join the silent line of children. They all ended up back at a gathering circle to talk about what they saw, heard, felt and experienced during the walk.

This blog post was originally published in August 2010.