Peter Worley

Peter Worley BA MA FRSA was born in the Midlands but grew up in the West Country. He failed at school the first time around and so had to do it all again later. He worked as a guitar teacher for many years before completing a philosophy degree in 2000 at UCL an MA in 2002 at Birkbeck and began a PhD at KCL in 2010 (which he one day hopes to finish). His interest in philosophy and teaching brought him to the world of philosophy with children and he developed his own approach to doing philosophical enquiry in the classroom called the PhiE method and this is described in his first bestselling book 'The If Machine' (Bloomsbury 2011). Three stories from this book were used in the BAFTA nominated BBC Learning resource 'What Makes Me Me?'. Peter is also the author and/or editor of three other books: 'The If Odyssey' (Bloomsbury 2012) shortlisted for Best Educational Book at the Educational Resources Award 2013 and winner of the Bronze award at the Primary Teacher Update annual awards 2013, 'The Philosophy Shop' (Crown House 2012), winner of the 2013 Best Educational Book at the Educational Resources Awards, winner of the first prize in the anthology category at The New England Book Festival and gold (first prize) winner of the Foreword Review 'Philosophy Book of The Year 2012'; he co-authored 'Thoughtings' (Crown House 2012) with Andrew Day (with a foreword by Michael Rosen), a collection of philosophical poetry, and his fifth book 'Once Upon an If: The Storythinking Handbook' (Bloomsbury) features a foreword by children's author Anne Fine. He has featured on television and Radio 4's The Today Programme talking about philosophy in schools and has been published in a number of educational and philosophical journals as well as lecturing on philosophy in schools at St. Mary's University in West London. He currently lives and works in South East London with his wife Emma, together with whom he runs the charity The Philosophy Foundation. Peter was the President of SOPHIA, the European foundation for the advancement of doing philosophy with children (2014-18) and he is also a Visiting Research Associate at King's College London. His latest books are '40 lessons to get children thinking' (Bloomsbury 2015) and 'Questioning' for Bloomsbury's 100 Ideas for Primary Teachers series (Bloomsbury 2019).