For the past 30 years, Sir Peter Birkett has established a credible reputation within the education sector. Passionate about the standard of education throughout his career, Sir Peter founded Highgate Hill House School located on the border of Cornwall and Devon. Established in 2016, the school is for children with special educational needs, focussing on children with social, emotional and mental health issues including autism. With Sir Peter sitting at the helm, it has gone from strength to strength and received nominations for several national awards. In 2020, the school was nominated one of the Top 20 Best Employers and has achieved very good external inspection ratings from both Ofsted and ISI.
Alongside founding his school, Sir Peter has previously dedicated his time to a number of other educational organisations. Before Highgate Sir Peter acted as the CEO of GEMS Group, for the UK and Europe. In his position of CEO, Sir Peter was responsible for developing a new vision, structure and strategy and was instrumental in the creation of the now infamous $1 million global teacher award.
Before GEMS, Sir Peter was the Principal and CEO of two FE colleges where he secured several high profile accolades including excellent OFSTED gradings and pioneered the first college-led academy federation in England. Since founding the federation, Sir Peter’s revolutionary concepts have been adopted throughout the UK. In addition, Sir Peter has also acted as a University and Further Education National Apprenticeship Champion and founded Passion5Excellence, an education consultancy company.
Highly motivated to achieve educational excellence, Sir Peter is passionately pioneering the future for generations to come. Most recently he has been appointed as Chair of the Educational Wealth Fund, helping to create learning environments for children where they feel Empowered, Inspired and Creative. As a reward for his achievements for services to Education and the academy movement, Sir Peter was honoured with a Knighthood in 2012. Sir Peter has continued to work tirelessly to improve educational opportunities in the UK, ensuring that children fulfil their potential within the best possible learning environments.
Sir Peter enjoys recounting his many experiences believing that he has “learned more from his mistakes than his successes” and this is what enables us to be better at what we do: “we learn and grow”. Sir Peter Birkett is a passionate, witty and motivational speaker who will appeal to audiences of all ages.
