Society for Advancing Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education
The Society for Advancing Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education (SAPERE) is a charity that promotes Philosophy for Children as an educational methodology in the UK. It is based at the Culham Innovation Centre, Abingdon, England, and its Chair is Elizabeth Jones, QC.
Philosophy for Children (P4C) is a powerful intervention which has been found through many research studies to have both cognitive and social impact on children and schools. P4C was launched in the UK by SAPERE in 1992 and now reaches 4,000 new teachers and 60-70,000 children a year in UK. P4C is centred on philosophical enquiry, where a trained teacher encourages children to think and reason as a group.
SAPERE's mission is to advance the educational, personal and social development of young people, especially those facing disadvantage, through the promotion of P4C. The organisation's work gained national prominence in 2015 when Durham University School of Education published results of a randomised control trial of P4C with over 3,000 primary school students. The study was sponsored by the Education Endowment Foundation. The study found that P4C advanced attainment for all students and had a particularly strong impact on children from disadvantaged backgrounds.