Six-year-olds from an Epsom primary school are having to put their thinking caps on for their new philosophy lessons.

Annie Thackray, the new headmistress of St Christopher’s School has introduced Philosophy on to the curriculum and now teach it to Year 2 every week.

Philosophy for young children is a new concept encouraged by the Government with their recent P4C (Philosophy for Children) initiative.

Mrs Thackray said: “It is an exciting concept which encourages higher level thinking and young children have demonstrated an incredible talent for this skill leading to these lessons sometimes being referred to as Socrates for six-year-olds.

“I have enjoyed a specific training for this subject and I introduced it into my former school at King’s House Richmond with great effect. I was very excited about looking at the type of philosophical enquiries that the Epsom children would generate and I was not disappointed.”

For one of the lessons, Mrs Thackray used the painting The Fall of Icarus, by Breughel, as a stimulus. The children also heard the poem Musee des Beaux Arts, by W.H. Auden, which was written about the painting.

They then passed the “thinking stone” around the circle as they made their observations and comments about the theme of human endurance in the face of tragedy.