Education - Primary Ethics

All about ethics lessons: webinars

We run regular one-hour webinars for anyone interested to find out more about what happens in ethics lessons or about volunteering with us.

In the webinar, you’ll be able to participate in a demo lesson to see our teaching style in action, hear first-hand from current ethics volunteers, hear about what impact ethics lessons have on children, plus all about our comprehensive free training and what’s involved in volunteering with us.

Click on an image for any session below to register.

Find out more about ethics volunteering

Barry: A highlight of my week

For Seniors Week 2026, we asked some of our over-70 volunteers to tell us about their experience with us. There is no age limit to ethics volunteering – we have volunteers in their late 80s. At 73, Barry Richardson is in his eighth year of volunteering with Primary Ethics.

Barry’s experience

Eight years ago, I was transitioning to retirement, moving from a five-day working week to three days. I saw an advert for ethics teachers in our local community Gazette, teaching at our local primary school, Artarmon, which my now very grown-up children had attended many years ago. What a great way to give something back to our wonderful community.

I thoroughly enjoyed the training and meeting an eclectic group of people of varying ages, backgrounds, experience and interests. The training introduced me to some great new skillsets.

My first ethics lessons were exciting, sometimes challenging, but always fun. It was like going back to school myself, with all that that brings.

I have been lucky enough to teach all ages and stages, at one time taking three classes a day. I’ve met some wonderful other volunteer teachers from our local area, as well as the school staff. It is both enjoyable and rewarding to be involved with young, active minds engaged in critical thinking and to learn about respectful discussion.

Without doubt, my classes have been a highlight of my week.

Barry

I am now retired and have moved to the inner west, where I have transitioned to teaching ethics at the local high school. More challenges, but always fun and certainly rewarding.

I also relief teach at the local primary school which three of my grandchildren attend or have attended. Having moved to a new area after 40 years in Artarmon, ethics volunteering has been a great way to meet many people in the community through the local school.

You’re never too old to be an ethics teacher!

Find out more about ethics

Paul: In touch with the rising generation

For Seniors Week 2026, we asked some of our over-70 volunteers to tell us about their experience with us. There is no age limit to ethics volunteering. At 88, Paul Sowter is in his eleventh year of volunteering with Primary Ethics.

Paul’s experience

When I retired from casual teaching at age 75, my son alerted me to the existence of Primary Ethics. I enquired, did the training and suddenly I was a teacher of ethics at Normanhurst West Public School, on Sydney’s far north shore.

As a former schoolteacher, I was impressed by the approach: everyone in a circle, kids do the talking but only if they want to. What a safe haven for the shy! The feedback in that most valuable end-of-year lesson revealed the benefits students draw from the experience, particularly in personal growth.

And I found this: whichever stage I taught over the next 10 years in various schools. Primary Ethics keeps me in touch with the rising generation – their innocence and awareness of so many things about the world is a delight to observe. The lesson material, especially for stage 3, can be challenging – you can see it in their faces. And they respond, slowly, feeling their way, listening intently to what their peers are saying, building on the previous contributions.

I have also seen the courses themselves develop over the years. And yes, old as I now am, I too have developed. I only wish I could have applied what I’ve learnt from teaching ethics in my former career.

As my hearing worsens with advancing age, soft voices can be a challenge. I am now employing an app on my iphone to improve my reception through airpods. The kids like being the monitor who delivers the iphone to the chosen speaker!

Over the years I have developed my IT skills with frequent assistance from the wonderful helpdesk. I delight in the material from Kindergarten to stage 3, often taking me off into further study

Whenever I meet someone for the first time I unashamedly steer the conversation towards Primary Ethics. No one has ever disapproved. All express an interest.

At the time of writing, March 2026, the topic my stage 1 class is exploring is pride. The photo of me above shows my pride in my endeavours.

The photo to the right is not my class. It is the instinctive formation of a troop of gorillas when they realise their leader is dead.

Why not join Paul as an ethics volunteer in your local school?

@Home for parents bulletin – Term 1 2026

Welcome to @Home bulletin for Term 1 2026, where we let families know what your children, from kindergarten into secondary school, are exploring in their ethics lessons this term.

Subscribe here to receive our @Home email bulletin once a term.

The topics we show below are based on classes which begin at the beginning of the year – this can vary as schools start their ethics programs at different times. If your child tells you they are discussing a topic you don’t see in this bulletin, you can also look at the Curriculum section of our website.

We hope the students talk about ethics with you at home – ask them questions about it!

Kindergarten: Being curious and asking questions: Young children are curious about countless things and a goal of our curriculum is to nurture this curiosity so that they’re motivated and confident enough to think critically for themselves about issues that matter to them. Our first topic of the year encourages kindy students to start thinking about why we ask questions. Students will also consider why it can sometimes be hard to ask questions out loud when we’re worried about looking silly.
Later in the year, students will consider questions about sharing, fairness and doing harm without meaning to.

Stage 1 (Years 1 & 2) Pride: In our first Stage 1 topic of the year students explore some big questions to do with pride. What does it mean to be proud of something? Is it okay to be proud of our accomplishments? What about being proud of the things we’re given, like gifts and rewards – is that okay? And why are we sometimes proud of other people?
Later in the year, students will reflect on the importance of having good reasons and discuss the ethics of laziness.

Stage 2 (Years 3 & 4) Being selfish: In our first Stage 2 topic of the year, students delve into the ethics of being selfish. Is it okay to act selfishly or is it always wrong? If you’ve put lots of effort into something or you’re worried it could get broken, is it okay not to share it? What does it mean if you help someone but for selfish reasons – is that misleading or deceitful?
Later in the year, students will think about how to disagree respectfully and whether it’s okay to keep animals in captivity.

Stage 3 (Years 5 & 6) A fair society: In our first Stage 3 topic of the year, students ponder what it means to have a fair society. Do we have a responsibility to make sure everyone can go to school and receive medical treatment? What are some of the challenges involved in providing such opportunities? And do governments have a responsibility to address inequalities that are the result of good or bad luck?
Later in the year, students will consider whether it’s ever okay to challenge a rule or piece of advice given by an authority.

Stage 4 (Years 7 & 8) Role models: Our first topic of the year invites students to consider the place of role models in our lives. What makes someone a good role model? Must someone to be a good person to be a good role model? Is it fair to have higher expectations of someone just because others consider them a role model? Can having a role model, even if it’s someone you’ve never met, help you navigate life’s moral challenges?
Later in the year, students will discuss whether the voting age should be lowered and some ethical dilemmas around friendships.

Each term brings new ideas and questions, and we hope these topics spark interesting conversations at home as well!

Thoughts about volunteering – from Mike Godfrey

In December last year, Mike Godfrey was presented with our Volunteer of the Year award. Mike has been a dedicated volunteer in our classroom support team for 12 years. Many ethics volunteers have met Mike when they’ve reached out for support with a challenging situation and Mike has been there, on the phone or in person, to offer calm, professional and practical solutions – and continuing back-up.

Mike himself is a volunteer and offered these thoughts about volunteering, especially as an older person, in his award acceptance speech.

“I want to talk about volunteering. This organisation doesn’t work without volunteers!

We often talk about how volunteers give back and what wonderful people they are — and yes, we are— but I want to tell you there’s two sides to this. We volunteers get a lot out of this too! I think there’s a message here which we can take to the community which may help drive more volunteering, especially in older age groups.

600 Mike — Mike with previous volunteers of the year - Barb La Ganza, Swee Goh and Jim Neely.

Listening hard: What I’ve got out of this (and I can only talk for myself but I do know some of this applies to others) are skills development as well as personal development.

One of the great things I’ve learnt is to be a better listener— because you can’t be in a classroom, either teaching or observing, unless you’re 100% engaged and listening hard. And I have to say —and I’ve taught communication skills over many years— I probably wasn’t the listener I could’ve been but ethics volunteering has really helped me improve.

Brain health: Social contact is important and being with like-minded people is healthy. And the mental and intellectual simulation is vital. You know, there isn’t a curriculum topic I’ve read which doesn’t stimulate me to consider what I really think about this. I love that it causes me to think deeply — to engage in topics which otherwise I wouldn’t have thought much about. And that’s growing me as a person. It’s good for my brain health too.

These are things we can get across to the community. You can still grow! You might be age 50/60/70/80. You can still grow and develop and learn and if you’ve got the energy, you can still teach ethics.

Mike

Relevance: I sat next to a lady in her late 60s in a doctor’s surgery years ago and she was telling me how she had lost her relevance. I thought that’s a really sad thing to have to say— she felt she just wasn’t relevant to her family, to society or to work any more. Had I known what I know now I would’ve suggested she join Primary Ethics as a volunteer! Relevance to society is very important for older people. It’s something Primary Ethics can provide.

CST — Mike with the rest of the Classroom Support Team.

Staying in touch: Finally, one of the other things I have gained is it helps me stay in touch with the younger generations and their society. The way the scripts are written is stimulating. Listening to students respond to the scripts and enter into meaningful and respectful discussions on the various topics is incredibly interesting. And it really does help you stay in touch with younger people and how and what they think, which I just think is very important in many ways.”

Find out more about volunteering with us >>

Eco-ethics at an urban farm

Primary Ethics has collaborated with Pocket City Farm, in inner-urban Camperdown, to create a half day of education about the ethics of sustainability. The pilot has run on two days this month, with visits from Y3 and Y4 students from Campsie Public School in Sydney’s south.

Sessions for groups of children were run by Farm educators and Primary Ethics teachers. The children learnt about forests, feeding weeds to the chooks and how the web of life keeps us all connected. Then in specially written ethics lessons, they explored protecting their environment.

Both days were very hot but the students were highly engaged – especially in the chookyard!

Danya: Building strong foundations

Danya Webb, with an extensive background in marketing and sales, is the training operations manager for Primary Ethics. Her team delivers all the new teacher training sessions. They also create all the e-learning modules for new teacher/coordinator training, as well as the many short courses and handouts available to volunteers. And they run monthly information webinars and collaborate with Classroom Support colleagues on professional development workshops.

My own journey with Primary Ethics began as a volunteer ethics teacher in 2018 when my younger daughter started kindergarten (her older sister had already been in ethics for a few years). My involvement grew when I took on the additional role of volunteer ethics coordinator at my children’s new school in 2021 to launch their ethics program. We now have a team of 12 ethics teachers at this K-12 school, covering almost all the demand for ethics from K-8. My younger daughter is now in Year 7 and I still teach her Stage 4 ethics class!

The power of the program is personal to me. I’ve seen both my children’s critical thinking and empathetic reasoning skills develop over the years thanks to their involvement in ethics education.

Danya

As training manager, I work with a dedicated team to ensure our volunteer ethics teachers and coordinators are well-prepared for their roles. Our commitment to continuous improvement and a supportive learning environment is at the heart of everything we do.

Our team of 14 trainers deliver regular interactive new teacher training workshops face-to-face in Sydney and Wollongong and online via Zoom. The online option makes our training more accessible to regional volunteers, as well as those who prefer the convenience of training from home or in the evenings.

We train all sorts of people – barristers and psychologists, cleaners and librarians. Regardless of background, everyone is trained in the same way, equipping all with the skills to become capable ethics teachers or coordinators.

We also develop and manage digital learning resources, including:

E-learning modules for new teacher and new coordinator training.
Many short courses and handouts available in our Document Library.
Collaborative professional development.

Learning doesn’t stop after the initial training. We strongly believe that every ethics lesson offers a chance to hone technique. We collaborate closely with the Classroom Support team to offer ongoing professional development, including:

Engage-Reflect-Connect workshops for ethics teachers
Coordinator Essentials workshops for ethics coordinators
Information webinars about ethics for parents and the community.
Commitment to continuous improvement.

To ensure our program remains current and impactful, we also run an annual program review. This evaluation is vital, helping us modify our approach to address any gaps and drive quality improvement.

Our training methodology has evolved significantly over the years — we are now on Version 11 of our new teacher training manual! This is a testament to our focus on integrating feedback, keeping up with best practice in adult learning methodology and adapting to the needs of our volunteers and students.

Check out what we offer in training

The Primary Ethics Volunteer of the Year for 2026

Primary Ethics is delighted to announce our Volunteer of the Year for 2026. The winner is Mike Godfrey, who has been a dedicated volunteer in our classroom support team for 12 years.

This award brings public recognition and appreciation for the often-unsung efforts of our wonderful volunteers, as well as substantial prize money to go to the recipient’s chosen school or schools.

The award honours a volunteer who has:

made a significant contribution to our mission to deliver ethics education to children so that they develop skills in ethical reasoning, critical thinking and respectful discussion
conducted themselves in a manner true to our values of respect, integrity, independence, excellence and teamwork.

With the award we acknowledge team players, good communicators, those who are supportive of other volunteers, reliable and committed to our program of ethics education.

Mike epitomises those qualities.

Mike is an invaluable member of the classroom support team. Across 12 years he has helped countless volunteers improve their skills. He also helps train new classroom support volunteers and is often called on for advice by the manager and members of the team alike.

Mike is always willing to call or visit teachers in need no matter where in Sydney they are located. With his warm, engaging style and depth of knowledge, he creates a supportive environment for teachers to discuss their challenges.

Mike was shortlisted for Volunteer of the Year in 2023 and 2024.

Volunteer feedback received after they had a discussion with Mike: ‘Dear Mike, I am pleased to say that by implementing the tips we discussed my next lesson was a hit … Needless to say I am so happy with how things went and would like to thank you for your kind support.’

A former CST manager says: “Mike has to be recognised for his high-quality service and care to ethics teachers over a significant length of time. He is the sort of person who always went the extra step to ensure teachers were supported and performing in accordance with Primary Ethics standards. Mike has also continued to provide this service with the many changes to curriculum, procedures and leadership of the team. He has played a key role as a senior CST member on many occasions, mentoring new members, living our company values and providing support wherever he was able. It is volunteers like Mike Godfrey who make us what we are at Primary Ethics.”

Congratulations Mike Godfrey!

@Home bulletin Term 4 2025

Welcome to @Home bulletin for Term 4 2025, where we let families know what your children, from kindergarten into secondary school, are exploring in their ethics lessons this term.

Subscribe here to receive our @Home email bulletin once a term.

The topics we show below are based on classes which begin at the beginning of the year. If your child tells you they are discussing a topic you don’t see in this bulletin, you can also look at the Curriculum section of our website.

We hope the students talk about ethics with you at home – ask them questions about it!

Term 4 curriculum selections

Kindergarten: Does telling the truth matter? Children often face tricky moments where honesty and kindness pull in different directions. This term, they’ll hear stories about friends who tell small untruths to spare feelings or avoid trouble and discuss whether it’s ever okay to make something up. They’ll explore why truth-telling matters, how lies can affect friendships and trust and whether it’s possible to be both kind and truthful at the same time.

Stage 1 – Years 1 & 2: Being kind Our Stage 1 students will explore what it really means to be kind. Through stories about Oli and her missing pet bird Tiwi – and other children trying to help in different ways – they’ll reflect on why people act kindly, what it means to understand how others feel and whether helping still counts as kindness if it’s done for the wrong reasons or only because someone told you to.

Stage 2 – Years 3 & 4: Cheating Fair play and honesty take centre stage this term. Students will unpack what it means to cheat – and whether it’s ever acceptable – across settings like backyard games, card matches and online competitions. They’ll consider why people bend the rules, when cheating seems less wrong and whether it’s possible to cheat yourself in a solo game.

Stage 3 – Years 5 & 6: Why should we trust science? Stage 3 students will explore how we decide what to believe and why science deserves our trust. They’ll learn about scientific ideas that changed the way people saw the world – like Galileo’s discovery that the Earth moves around the Sun – and discuss what makes a good scientific explanation. Along the way, they’ll consider how our beliefs about the world can shape our choices and actions.

Stage 4 – Years 7 & 8: The cost of a human life Our high schools will tackle one of the most challenging ethical questions of all – how to weigh the value of a human life when making decisions. They’ll explore why governments sometimes assign a dollar value to life, how those figures influence policies and what happened when these ideas were debated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students will discuss fairness, dignity and whether every life should be valued equally, while considering whether it’s ever right to reduce human life to numbers.

Each term brings new ideas and questions, we hope these topics spark interesting conversations at home as well!

Find out more about ethics classes