Philosophy Lesson Awards
The philosophy lesson awards are designed to encourage collaboration between philosophy teachers, working together to build and share a publicly available resource bank for teachers and students of philosophy. There are three philosophy lesson awards in 2026.
The Oxford Quartet: Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot , Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch
Philosophy & Thought
The British Philosophical Tradition
Lessons based on the newly published guidebook on the Oxford Quartet. This guidebook presents elements of the philosophical work of these figures which are well suited to being incorperated into teaching the A level philosophy curriculumn.
Lessons which draw on a broader stream of thought than the analytic and early modern focus of the A level. This can include; philosophical work drawn from other periods such as medieval or late antiquity, lessons which draw on the continental tradition from Hegel up to Post-Modern thinkers such as Baudrillard as well as lessons which draw on works outside the occident tradition such as Islamic philosophy or Chinese and Indian thought.
Lessons which cover the British philosophical tradition. Some example topics follow for illustration but teachers are free to select any British philosophical figure/s to present; Political philosophy from Hobbes to Mill, Utilitarianism, Liberalism and the rights of woman, Francis Bacon and the development of the scientific method, The Cambridge Wittgensten Circle, Hume and Russell in debate with Coplestone over religious truth.
Submissions rules
All submissions must be submitted by a team of 2-5 teachers, all members of the APT.
Participating teams should submit a description of their block of 4-6 lessons ideally by 15th March to ensure there’s time to set up the website to display the entries. The completed set of lessons with all resources should be submitted by the 10th June. Submitted lessons will be uploaded onto the APT website where members will be free to vote for the winners of the awards. The winning sets of lessons will be announced at the APT conference at UCL on June 26th 2026.
The winning team in each competition will receive an Honarium of £600 in recognition of their outstanding work.
Guidance on applying
There is no expectation that this lessons have to be created from scratch for this award. One rationale of the awards is that they will cover lesson blocks which you have put together in the course of offering non-A level philosophy lessons in your schools and colleges.
What we’re looking for
We’re looking for blocks of lessons which have a golden thread running through them, which succeed in tying the lessons together to create a coherent narrative of the development and significance of the philosophical arguments which they cover. These lessons should be fully resourced, meaning a powerpoint as well as accompanying worksheets.
Collaboration
If you would like to team up with another philosophy teacher to enter the awards but do not have a wide acquantaince of fellow philosophy teachers the Apt will help to match people up, just send an email to robert.peney@associationphilosophyteachers.org letting us know where you teach and which award/s you’d be interested in developing lessons for.