Primary Ethics was established to provide young people with the space to explore ethical dilemmas within a secular context.

We are an independent not-for-profit organisation delivering an engaging, age-appropriate, interconnected curriculum spanning the years from Kindergarten to Year 6. We provide this free of charge via a network of trained and accredited volunteer teachers.

Ethics classes have been enthusiastically adopted in over 500 schools in NSW and Primary Ethics is a highly effective education provider within the public school system.

What happens in an ethics class?

Ethics classes provide an opportunity for children to discuss ethical issues with their peers. Classes are inquiry based and are impartially facilitated by our trained volunteers using approved lesson materials.

Children explore a range of stories and scenarios, discussing what we ought to do, how we ought to live, the kind of society we should have and what kind of person each of us should strive to be. Many of the skills that children develop and practice in ethics classes are of benefit in other aspects of their lives:

Critical thinking: developing and evaluating arguments, using logic and reason, evaluating evidence, giving reasons and carefully considering views that are different to their own.

Collaborative inquiry: listening to each other, taking turns to speak, building on others' ideas, respectfully disagreeing, respectfully challenging each others' thinking, helping each other express ideas, articulating values and principles, putting a counter view and asking questions.

Why support ethics in schools?

Ethics classes support students to become critical thinkers with a strong capacity for questioning and inquiry. The overall aim of ethics classes is to help children develop a life-long capacity to identify and make well-reasoned decisions about ethical issues.

In time, not very much time at all, it will be the decisions of the children we teach today that will shape the world. - Dr Simon Longstaff, The Ethics Centre