News: Remembering Sir Tim Brighouse - former Peeple Trustee

We were very sad to hear of the death of Professor Sir Tim Brighouse on 16 December 2023. Tim was one of the great minds behind Peeple, set up in 1995 with the audacious plan to improve education outcomes of children at secondary school, by working with their parents from birth. Mike O’Regan, our founder, recalls how Tim (then Oxfordshire’s Chief Education Officer) responded to the idea with his characteristic enthusiasm and supportive energy and helped give PEEP (our former name) its confident start.

Tim went on to serve as a trustee until 2014. During this time, we benefitted from his kindness and warmth as well as his wisdom, extraordinary breadth of experience and, when needed, his firmness and authority. We were lucky to have him – clearly a feeling shared by (almost!) everyone he worked with or who enjoyed correspondence with him, judging by the personal and poignant comments shared recently in the press. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read this letter from a Nursery Teacher in the Guardian: “I once wrote to Tim in despair about the effect of some educational ‘reform’ on my nursery class. He replied by return post and advised me to collect all the relevant paperwork, set fire to it in the garden and dance around it. ‘It won't make any difference, but it might make you feel better’ he wrote. His letter certainly did.”

Sally Smith
Peeple CEO