St Paul’s Big Questions

What colour is happiness?

Is being a good friend easy?

Does more mean happier?

Big Questions are the ones that don’t have an easy answer.

Children ask so many questions every day and most of them start off with that little word, ‘Why?’

Big questions are often open and difficult; they may even be unanswerable or there may be more than one answer. The aim of us asking and discussing big questions at home and at school is to encourage deep and long conversations, rather than finding easy answers.

These questions encourage children to offer theories, work collaboratively, use reason and think critically. A good Big Question will connect more than one subject area: “What is a spider?” for instance, does not touch as many different subjects as “I wonder would happen to Earth if all spiders disappeared…”

Big Questions should be ones which encourage research, debate and critical thinking. Big Questions aren’t just about getting the ‘right’ answers, but about learning the methods and skills needed to find the answers.

Why do we ask Big Questions?

• To encourage children to think beyond the obvious.
• To encourage children to think of as many possibilities as they can, before deciding upon the best or most appropriate answer.
• To increase their understanding of a topic
• To promote critical thinking
• To encourage children to articulate their thoughts

Each month we will be sending a special Big Question home with the children to hopefully encourage the children to practice chatting with you at home and hearing different points of view and opinions.  

 We find that the pupils really enjoy this chance to talk/share/think/argue/debate and use their reasoning skills. Above all, it helps them to learn to ‘think outside of the box’ and see ‘the bigger picture’.