Derek Peaple has twenty year’s experience as a secondary headteacher. Under his leadership, Park House School in Newbury developed as one of the country’s most successful Specialist Sports Colleges, subsequently being identified in the top 100 state schools in the country for continuous improvement.

 

In 2019 it became one of the Department for Education’s first National Computing Education Hubs, providing professional development for teachers across the south of England with Aspire 2Be as the principal delivery partner.

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Derek has played a leading role in regional, national and international sports education initiatives. He helped to devise the London 2012 Get Set Education programme and additionally developed online learning materials for the global learning BBC World Olympic Dreams initiative. Based on this experience, he is currently supporting the design of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic education programme.

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After London 2012 Derek was appointed as the first Chair of the Youth Sport Trust’s national Headteacher Strategy Group to promote the Olympic and Paralympic Legacy and received the inaugural Sir John Madejski Award for Outstanding Contribution to Education and Sport. His advice featured in the House of Commons Education Committee’s influential Report, School Sport following London 2012: No more political football and he regularly presents nationally and internationally on the role of sport in shaping school culture.

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Derek’s championing of the values of sport to build confidence in learning across the curriculum featured as a case study in Demos’ 2015 Report, Character Nation. In this context, his ‘values-driven ambition for students’ has been praised by Ofsted as a distinctive feature of his leadership. He continues to work as a School Improvement Adviser and national and international leadership development consultant.

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As a result of the breadth of his work and influence, Derek was recently shortlisted for the Times Education Supplement National Headteacher of the Year Award.