Peter Tymms

Peter B. Tymms, FBA is a British academic and researcher in the field of education. He is an emeritus professor at the School of Education, Durham University. Tymms is a Fellow of the British Academy.

Early life and education

Tymms earned a degree in natural sciences from Cambridge University in 1970. He initially pursued a career in teaching, working in schools in Zambia and East Durham. He later transitioned to academia, completing a PhD at Cambridge University in 1997.

Academic career

After completing his PhD, Tymms joined Newcastle University as a researcher on the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI). Subsequently, he became a lecturer in performance indicators at Moray House, University of Edinburgh. In 1992, he returned to Newcastle University, where he developed the Performance Indicators in Primary Schools (PIPS) project within the Curriculum Evaluation and Management Centre (CEM). In 1996, CEM relocated to Durham University, and Tymms was appointed as the director of the PIPS project and later as the director of CEM.

Tymms's work at CEM focused on developing systems to monitor and assess primary school education. This included the creation of the PIPS baseline assessment and the interactive reading test known as INCAS.

In 2016, Tymms was appointed by the Department of Education to lead an initiative aimed at developing a single transfer test for Northern Ireland.

Honours
Fellow of the British Academy (elected 2021)
Member of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) Evaluation Advisory Group

Books
Tymms has authored several books, including:
The P Scales: Assessing the Progress of Children with Special Educational Needs (2009, Wiley)
Baseline Assessment and Monitoring in Primary Schools (1999, David Fulton)

 References 

Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge
Category:Academics of the University of Durham