Tim Mills

Tim led the expert panel and was lead drafter of the DfE’s Writing Framework and is currently a DfE RISE Advisor. He was previously Executive Director of Primary Education for STEP Academy Trust and helped build the Trust into one of the highest performing in the primary sector. His doctoral study focused on teaching phonics in KS2 with the published research building on the growing understanding of ‘decoding threshold’ – how much phonics is enough phonics. He is a visiting professor at the University of Coventry and has published a number of academic peer-reviewed papers. Prior to working in education, Tim was a feature writer for the London Evening Standard, wrote the award-winning Channel 4 short film ‘Sunny Spells’ and in 1985 was booed off stage at London’s Comedy Store.