New Co-Director Emma Swinn joins the SAPERE staff team

Emma will have overall responsibility for operational matters, including finance and administration. She serves as Co-Director of SAPERE, alongside our existing Director of Philosophy for Children, Grace Lockrobin. Together they will share responsibility for the leadership and development of SAPERE.

Emma is already known to many in the world of P4C as an active and innovative member of the national and international community around philosophical education. She was the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of The Philosophy Foundation from 2007 to this year. She is President of SOPHIA: The European Foundation for the Advancement of Philosophy with Children and a Visiting Research Associate at Kings College London because of her research into philosophical enquiry in schools.

Emma is a Non-Executive Director of Thinking Space CIC; she has also been a business mentor for the Young Foundation’s Accelerator Programme and is on the Advisory Board for the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at the LSE. Emma is a contributing author to the award-winning The Philosophy Shop book and has helped with proofreading and editing all of The Philosophy Foundation’s publications. Emma is a commissioning editor for The Philosopher’s Magazine for their Young Philosopher’s editorial.

Emma was named as one of the top 100 Women in Social Enterprise in 2017 and in 2020 was also highly-commended for her leadership role in the Social Enterprise 100 Awards. Emma was awarded an MBE for services to innovation in the 2020 New Year Honours.

In the 10 years before co-founding The Philosophy Foundation, Emma was a successful actor and occasional stand-up comedian. She writes her own material and continues to work in the industry. She has worked as a drama educator for schools and regularly works with children’s charity Scene and Heard as an actor, director and dramaturg.

Emma says:

“After 20 years of building and working with a wonderful team at The Philosophy Foundation I wanted a new challenge whilst continuing to push for philosophy in schools and the wider community. The move to SAPERE affords me this opportunity. Having worked alongside many of SAPERE’s trainers and teachers in the UK and internationally, I want to use my experience in the field to work with Grace and the rest of the SAPERE staff, to enhance operational support for the staff team, the trainer network and the schools we work with, and to develop future partnerships that can strengthen P4C’s reach and beneficiaries.”

Emma and Grace have worked together for many years at Thinking Space and SOPHIA and are looking forward to developing future plans and partnerships that will benefit SAPERE and every educator and organisation concerned with Philosophy for Children and philosophical education generally.

The Trustees and Staff are delighted to have recruited someone with such rich and relevant expertise of philosophy, education, and the charitable sector; demonstrable operational competence; evident leadership and vision and a deep passion for P4C. We hope this appointment will strengthen SAPERE’s existing work and help us to become more sustainable, while also promoting a renewed culture of innovation and collaboration.