P4C is a learning approach which runs throughout the NVAFC lessons. We recommend training before using P4C but here you can find a guide to the ‘10 Steps of P4C’ and concept question plans to support teacher questioning during an enquiry.

In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “You may well ask, ‘Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn’t negotiation a better path?’ You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Non-violent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatise the issue that it can no longer be ignored”. The Sheffield Street Trees campaign illustrates this beautifully as direct action was used successfully not only to actually protect trees but also to bring the issue to the attention of the wider public. This led to a successful process of negotiation where different views were taken into consideration when deciding how to manage the street trees. These lessons use a fictional context using ‘Mantle of the Expert’ to introduce different perspectives and to engage learners in the Sheffield Street Trees case study which is introduced at the end. At this point it would be helpful to make a distinction between the fictional drama and what really happened. Although different perspectives and complexities are introduced through the lessons, including the contestability of the decision by some tree protectors to break the injunction by going through the barriers as ‘persons unknown’ the final outcome of the actual protests was that the protestors were vindicated in their objections. The new tree strategy that came from negotiations illustrates this and is a much more cautious and participatory approach to street tree management in Sheffield. Sheffield Council received criticism from national bodies such as the Woodland Trust and was investigated by the Forestry Commission. They issued an apology for the dawn raid on Rustlings road (that the first scenario is based on) ‘A public unreserved apology’ was recommended by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman . A script is provided for those teachers who are not familiar with Mantle of the Expert but this can obviously be used flexibly with those who are. Out of role curriculum activities feature throughout.

This is one of a series of lessons relating to the environment (the others are the Chipko Movement in India, The Green Belt Movement in Kenya and Sheffield Street Trees). This lesson explores the mass trespass of Kinder Scout in the Peak District, UK in 1932. After considering the idea of ‘trespass’, learners respond to a film about the mass trespass using a question quadrant to generate questions and engage in a philosophical enquiry about one of them.