Our Tribute to Sir Tim Brighouse

Sir Tim Brighouse was an extraordinary man who embraced so many paradoxes, perhaps that is why he was so extraordinary. He was understated and humble, yet had significant influence at the top levels as well as local ones. He was all about school improvement at a system level and yet always remained the champion of teachers and students, never losing his connection with, or love of, the classroom. He was incredibly intelligent and insightful and yet never used that over people nor ever used it to make others feel inferior, he had a way of elevating others. I knew of him long before I met him, when my father, Sir John Rowling, went to work for the London Challenge with Tim Brighouse, it was an incredibly exciting time in his life, and in the life of the schools who were part of it and I remember as a young teacher myself at the time, hearing all about it and marvelling at the change that was occurring as they crossed metaphorical borders between schools working together and working with independent schools. It was so exciting and significant in improving outcomes and life chances, in fact, that when the London Challenge funding stopped, the majority of the headteachers in the room opted to fund it themselves and continue with their work with Sir John. It was in that room that what became PiXL, was born. A large number of those original founding schools are still members working with us. We celebrate 20 years of working with them in some form or other, next year. A remarkable legacy from the work of Sir John, Sir Tim and others.

I also knew Tim through the work he and Mick Waters wrote together – what wisdom, what intelligence and what humanity both of them showed and Mick continues to show. I am proud that Mick is part of all of our conferences this year bringing his wisdom, insights, intelligence and humility to PiXL members – we are richer for it. The books they wrote, with the number of contributors involved, of all different persuasions and politics, says a lot about them both.

Then I was fortunate to spend a morning with Tim in 2022 when we filmed PiXL in Conversation together. What we got on camera was only a quarter of what was spoken when the cameras stopped. In fact, the conversation was flowing so much and so naturally it was almost impossible for the film crew to work out what was on and what was off! We talked about all types of things, including some reflections that were poignant and moving. You can hear them for yourself in this episode which we are releasing to everyone below.

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Listening to Tim was a special experience and what we talked about afterwards was a significant moment in my early PiXL leadership as he encouraged me on, to speak up, to bring people together, to lead the way I wanted to and to keep young people and teachers at the heart. We talked about like-minded people in education, and those who were different in their thinking and how we could continue to get people in the same room together, finding commonalities, finding differences and engaging in debate, not alienating or polarising but coming together to think, to learn and to be…together in healthy, dignified debate. I told him I would do this and would continue to try to do this, we even wrote a list of people who he felt would be excellent to contact – the list was long and varied. We had several more cups of tea and hatched several plans in the trendy AirBnB London flat we had rented for filming. I left energised and excited, grateful and reflective – he was the same era as my father who we had only recently lost. It gave me chance to reflect on that too. Neither of us wanted to leave, he was so relaxed he was almost off the chair in which he was sitting, we laughed and we reflected. It was a conversation I will always be grateful for.

I am grateful that I have been brought up watching leaders like Tim Brighouse and others of his generation – who were not afraid to speak out, were convicted about what they believed, who were change makers and giant battlers but did it all with heart, humanity and humility. And yet he too was a giant, even though at times he was the underdog, another paradox. We stand on the shoulders of giants in this work and Sir Tim Brighouse was one of those giants.

Rachel Johnson
PiXL CEO