About Brainstretchers

In a few weeks' time, I'm due to start running a new club at a small school on the outskirts of London, which I'm calling Brainstretchers. I'm not normally the kind of person to write a blog, but I do feel like this is the kind of thing that might genuinely be of interest to other people: I'm trying something quite unusual here.

The idea behind Brainstretchers, which will run on Tuesday mornings for 45 minutes before school starts, is to kick start kids' brains - to give them something stimulating to think about during the day, perhaps all week. What that thing will be is different from week to week - literally anything goes - but it's specifically non-curriculum based. This is about general thinking, a complement to the more formal education they get in normal school time. My personal buzzword is that it's about Big Questions.

It took a long time for the idea to really take shape in my head - I was originally thinking of running a club on story telling and story structure, but it was only when I conceived of it as a club to run before school that it really started to come together. Now I'm planning to use this blog as a way of documenting our progress and seeing if it's a success. I think many people would be doubtful that this kind of thing is appropriate for such young children - I'm planning to cover topics like philosophy, evolution, music, art history and many other 'advanced' ideas, but I'm convinced that they're more than capable of engaging with them and taking them forward. I should also take my hat off to the head teacher for her enthusiasm and support for such an unusual venture!

The club will include my own two children (currently aged 6 and 8), and the first hurdle is to see how many others sign up! For those readers who are parents thinking of joining, I should point out that neither the name of the school nor the names of the children will be included in the blog, and I shall do my best to ensure that when I do talk about what happens in the class, particular children aren't identifiable even to those who know them.

That's it for now. I'm going to post again shortly before the first session and I hope people will enjoy finding out how we get on. In the meantime, feel free to find out more about me from my profile. I'm busy preparing my first session, which will be on the nature of Infinity...