By LAURA CLARK

Last updated at 08:20 07 February 2008

While other five-year-olds are learning to spell their names and tie up shoelaces, infants at one school are debating life's great mysteries - in philosophy lessons.

Staff say that instead of "thumping each other" in the playground, pupils now challenge each other's ideas when they disagree.

The Philosophy for Children course encourages pupils to grapple with conundrums such as free will, religion and the nature of luck.

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And the classes at tough London primary Gallions have been so successful at improving results and behaviour that it has sold its own teaching kits and DVDs to 150 schools in Britain and abroad.

Paul Jackson, one of the school's two head teachers, said: "Gallions opened in 1999 on a new estate in the East End, with all the problems that an inner-London estate brings.

"Virtually everyone that came here had some kind of emotional or behavioural difficulty."

The school, in Beckton, East London, brought in a consultant to instigate philosophical discussions six years ago and the youngsters immediately took to it.

Formal lessons in philosophy begin at five, but preparation starts even earlier, in the school's own nursery.

Three-year-olds are introduced to the concept of justification through simple exercises, such as getting them to sit on a "magic carpet" and then asking where they plan to travel on it and why.

Five-year-olds are challenged to consider why music sounds harmonious and people are more likely to shout outside.

Philosophy is taught across the board in place of citizenship lessons and the school has hired a dedicated "philosophy for children" teacher, Lisa Naylor.

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She said: "I have witnessed children who barely spoke English and children who had very little self-confidence debating fervently whether the sound of rain on the window was or wasn't music."

At first, she had difficulties getting the children involved without being aggressive towards their classmates.

But soon pupils were able to "challenge each other's ideas in an assertive and non-aggressive way", leading to better behaviour and greater respect for one another.