ethos
positive education for the future
The Spiritual,
Moral, Social and
Cultural Development
of Learners
Kit Thorne talks about the various approaches to SMSC
education that he has experienced in his years as teacher,
adviser and inspector
Dear Reader
Dateline early September 2012. So there I
was, in South West France for a week’s
Philosophy and Art Adventure. There were 10
of us taking part in the week and one of them
was David Rowse and one of them was me,
Kit Thorne. Let me introduce myself a little
more. I currently work in the Inclusion and
Learning Service at Sheffield Local
Authority. My role is to commission
continuing professional development for the
children’s workforce. I have been a teacher,
adviser and inspector over the last 37 years
and during that time I have been privileged
to encounter a whole range of interesting
and committed educators and pedagogical
approaches. One of which is Philosophy for
Children, but more of that later. Oh, and by
the way, I do tend to write stuff in a rather
stream of consciousness manner, so please
bear with that.
As I was saying, finding myself in France for a
week and engaging in philosophical enquiry
sessions each day, we soon got into some
interesting territory – not least when talking
about schools, teaching and learning. I
suppose somewhat predictably, and with a
20
slight groan in some instances, we touched
on the fact that there has been yet anoth \