History

A Level Philosophy (ALP) was started by Michael Lacewing in June 2003 to support and encourage the teaching of philosophy in Years 12 and 13. Its purpose is to provide conferences and talks, for both students and teachers, on the philosophical topics that form part of the various AS and A2 level syllabi studied in Years 12 and 13. These include the AS level and A2 level exams in AQA philosophy, the philosophy of religion and ethics stream of the AQA, OCR, and Edexcel religious studies A level syllabi, and the International Baccalaureate.

In March 2003, Heythrop College in London, where Michael Lacewing lectures, held a conference on A level philosophy. It was booked out twice over, and was a great success. To meet the growing demand for conferences for students, and then also for teachers, A Level Philosophy was started.

Conferences and talks

There are three types of service that ALP offers:

First, we organize conferences for students at regular intervals.

Second, we organize conferences for teachers. These have limited places, and are designed to help both with the difficult philosophical topics of the syllabus and the distinct issues and challenges for teaching raised by the nature of philosophical argument.

Third, we organize talks and conferences at schools, from an after-dinner address to a full day conference with three speakers.

Resources

From 2004, ALP developed the UK's premier web resource for philosophy at A level. From 1 September 2008, all ALP handouts relating to the AQA Philosophy syllabus are hosted by Routledge. The ALP resources centre provides over 80 handouts and PowerPoints relating to the new OCR RS (Philosophy and Ethics) syllabus and over 60 relating to the new AQA RS (Philosophy and Ethics) syllabus.

Feedback

If you'd like to give us any feedback, on the website, the company, or a conference you've attended, we'd be very happy to hear from you.