Robert Peal

Robert Peal is Joint Headteacher at the West London Free School, a publicly funded secondary school in Hammersmith, London. As an author, he has written a history of teaching methods in British schools entitled Progressively Worse (2014); a series of textbooks for Collins entitled Knowing History (2016), and Meet the Georgians (2021) a biographical history of the eighteenth century. Most recently, he co-authored an account of education reforms since 2010 entitled Reforming Lessons (2025) with the former Schools Minister Sir Nick Gibb, for whom he worked as a policy advisor.

Robert studied History at the University of Cambridge and the University of Pennsylvania on a Thouron Scholarship, and began his teaching career in Birmingham. In 2024, Robert was awarded an MBE for ‘services to education’ on the King’s birthday honours list, and in 2025, the West London Free School was named London Comprehensive School of the Year by the Sunday Times.