00:02 I’m Tim Byles I’m the Chief Executive of Partnerships for Schools. Partnerships for Schools is a company set up by government to help transform the quality of education for all young people in secondary schools and we’ve just been asked actually to extend our remit to cover primary and secondary education. So we’re in the business of trying to make sure every young person in the country gets the chance to make the best of their opportunities, the best that life has to offer for them, in life outcomes as well as in education.
00:31 Well I was rung up one day actually as I was running a local authority myself to say well here’s a programme that’s really important and it’s running behind and it needs some attention to try and make sure that it’s delivering a high national ambition and so I had a look at the work Partnerships for Schools was doing at that time and the programme, Building Schools for the Future and I realised that some of my experiences in life might help move this forward.
00:54 I didn’t have any clear sense about what I wanted to do as a career when I was at school I knew there were some things I didn’t want to do, being stuck in an office all day was one of those. I sort of liked it and loathed it really I mean I think it was, there were some bits which were captivating, interesting and one teacher in particular I’m still in touch with actually, at the secondary level, he gave me a perspective on economics and on history and the lessons you can learn which I still draw on today.
01:18 My father was a chemical engineer he was a very bright kind of scientist type person and I’m not a scientist at all actually, although we’re both musicians. I play the piano and the guitar and now bass guitar, little bit of drums. But the main impact my father had he died when I was very young, once he’d died that changed my whole perspective and the whole way in which the family worked actually. Suddenly needing to make sure there was enough money coming in was a big priority that’s why I did such a lot of strange jobs, packing zips in the evenings for a local zip factory, working in a petrol station, fortunately someone started developing the M25 near where we lived and that’s how I started doing jobs in holidays, and saw construction for the first time. So doing a whole range of different sort of jobs gave me the chance to see how a lot of people spend their lives, not really enjoying what they’re doing, being uncomfortable, not having enough resources and not having enough money to do the things they want to do. But having had that experience helped guide me towards the sort of things I felt I could do.
02:25 And when I went on to university I was really wanting to focus on what’s life all about, why are we here and that’s why I read philosophy and theology at university to come to some sort of conclusion about why am I here, and what sort of choices do I need to make for the future, and when I came out of that, went straight into work.
02:42 I was with British Gas in their graduate training scheme for 4 years, had a marvellous experience and I wanted to move a bit quicker than I think the organisation was wanting to. So I found an opportunity elsewhere and moved into that.
02:56 I was running a financing operation, public and private sector, finance for tourism projects, projects like Centre Parcs, the holiday villages people, developing new hotel facilities across the country, attractions, I worked with the English Tourist board at that time and so, don’t ask me why it just jumped out of the page at me as something that would be a really interesting thing to do and I can use some of my skills to do that. I got an opportunity and suddenly three years later I was kind of running the whole operation on the development side.
03:24 It was opportunity, it was one of the features of my career I think has been surfing some opportunities as they’ve arisen, I certainly didn’t have a grand plan as to how this might turn out and I don’t think I’ve finished surfing yet actually. Don’t imagine that the decisions you make when you start your career are necessarily going to be where you wind up, you hear all kinds of stories these days about people having 3 or 4 different careers in their life and I think although you need to make rational sensible decisions in terms of your skills, your background and the opportunities that are around there’s a lot of opportunity to build up experience, to develop yourself and to find opportunities to go places you haven’t even thought of.
04:03
Tim Byles
Tim Byles
I’m Tim Byles I’m the Chief Executive of Partnerships for Schools. Partnerships for Schools is a company set up by government to help transform the quality of education for all young people in secondary schools and we’ve just been asked actually to extend our remit to cover primary and secondary education. So we’re in the business of trying to make sure every young person in the country gets the chance to make the best of their opportunities, the best that life has to offer for them, in life outcomes as well as in education.
Well I was rung up one day actually as I was running a local authority myself to say well here’s a programme that’s really important and it’s running behind and it needs some attention to try and make sure that it’s delivering a high national ambition and so I had a look at the work Partnerships for Schools was doing at that time and the programme, Building Schools for the Future and I realised that some of my experiences in life might help move this forward.
I didn’t have any clear sense about what I wanted to do as a career when I was at school I knew there were some things I didn’t want to do, being stuck in an office all day was one of those. I sort of liked it and loathed it really I mean I think it was, there were some bits which were captivating, interesting and one teacher in particular I’m still in touch with actually, at the secondary level, he gave me a perspective on economics and on history and the lessons you can learn which I still draw on today.
My father was a chemical engineer he was a very bright kind of scientist type person and I’m not a scientist at all actually, although we’re both musicians. I play the piano and the guitar and now bass guitar, little bit of drums. But the main impact my father had he died when I was very young, once he’d died that changed my whole perspective and the whole way in which the family worked actually. Suddenly needing to make sure there was enough money coming in was a big priority that’s why I did such a lot of strange jobs, packing zips in the evenings for a local zip factory, working in a petrol station, fortunately someone started developing the M25 near where we lived and that’s how I started doing jobs in holidays, and saw construction for the first time. So doing a whole range of different sort of jobs gave me the chance to see how a lot of people spend their lives, not really enjoying what they’re doing, being uncomfortable, not having enough resources and not having enough money to do the things they want to do. But having had that experience helped guide me towards the sort of things I felt I could do.
And when I went on to university I was really wanting to focus on what’s life all about, why are we here and that’s why I read philosophy and theology at university to come to some sort of conclusion about why am I here, and what sort of choices do I need to make for the future, and when I came out of that, went straight into work.
I was with British Gas in their graduate training scheme for 4 years, had a marvellous experience and I wanted to move a bit quicker than I think the organisation was wanting to. So I found an opportunity elsewhere and moved into that.
I was running a financing operation, public and private sector, finance for tourism projects, projects like Centre Parcs, the holiday villages people, developing new hotel facilities across the country, attractions, I worked with the English Tourist board at that time and so, don’t ask me why it just jumped out of the page at me as something that would be a really interesting thing to do and I can use some of my skills to do that. I got an opportunity and suddenly three years later I was kind of running the whole operation on the development side.
It was opportunity, it was one of the features of my career I think has been surfing some opportunities as they’ve arisen, I certainly didn’t have a grand plan as to how this might turn out and I don’t think I’ve finished surfing yet actually. Don’t imagine that the decisions you make when you start your career are necessarily going to be where you wind up, you hear all kinds of stories these days about people having 3 or 4 different careers in their life and I think although you need to make rational sensible decisions in terms of your skills, your background and the opportunities that are around there’s a lot of opportunity to build up experience, to develop yourself and to find opportunities to go places you haven’t even thought of.
Tim Byles is the Chief Executive of Partnerships for Schools. He says, "Partnerships for Schools is a company set up by government to help transform the quality of education for all young people in secondary schools... we're in the business of trying to make sure every young person in the country gets the chance to make the best of their opportunities, the best that life has to offer for them, in life outcomes as well as in education".
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