Katharine Birbalsingh, the headmistress of one of Britain’s best state schools, has written an excoriating letter to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson after a disappointing meeting where Phillipson exposed her true colours. Published in full in the Spectator, the letter kicks off by noting Michaela’s extraordinary achievements under the freedoms permitted to it as an academy (52% grade 9s across all GCSEs, compared to £60,000-a-year Eton’s 53%) before launching into a devastating rundown of Phillipson’s hypocrisies, Leftist animus towards educational freedom and basic lack of understanding of her own bill. Here’s an excerpt.
You have said that you want to address recruitment. But you are making it harder for schools to hire new staff. There will be fewer maths teachers in our classrooms because of your butchery of the Advanced Maths Support Programme. You are removing schools’ ability to hire teachers without the mountains of bureaucracy that your state-sanctioned, centralised stamping requires.
You are passing a law that we must all follow a brand-new curriculum, before you have even told us what it is. Every teacher knows what this means: more money spent on new resources – such as textbooks – and thousands of man-hours ploughed into a fresh curriculum that hasn’t been finalised and might be changed. Time away from children means time away from raising standards. We tried to explain this, but to no avail.
I believe your lack of clarity and interest unfortunately stems from a deeper problem. It became apparent to me when we met that you do not appear to know your own bill.
When we asked you to explain how the recruitment of new teachers would function, you said that this detail was covered in the bill. When we read to you the relevant extracts from the bill, you said that it would be clarified elsewhere. But when we looked elsewhere, we didn’t find any answers to our questions.
When we asked you to explain how the changes to published admissions numbers would function, again you did not appear to understand. This rule change means that local councils can deliberately reduce the capacity at popular, good schools in order to force families towards less good schools which are undersubscribed. When we asked what you would say to a mother desperate for a place for her child in a successful school, who misses out because the capacity at these institutions has been deliberately reduced, you were unable to answer.
Your party has had 14 years in opposition to prepare for this. You were the Shadow Education Secretary for three years ahead of the election. It should not be left to school leaders to point out the holes in this bill.
So why do all this? Why claim to love academies when you are in fact turning all academies into the equivalent of local authority schools? The reality is that your record in Parliament reveals what you really think of academies, which is that you hate them. You repeatedly voted against academy reforms from 2010 to 2016. You claim to be a great believer in the high standards which academies have brought, but we saw you twist your face with disgust every time you said the word in our meeting, repeating that the worst schools “are, in fact, academies“.
You are pretending to like academies now that you are Education Secretary, because it is hard to openly oppose them in the way that you have done throughout your Parliamentary career, in the face of such obvious success. You don’t want school leaders to have the freedom to innovate and do what is right for their children. You want the state to have control, which is not much of a surprise; I’ve repeatedly pointed out your Marxist leanings. You should stick to your convictions and admit that you do not believe academy freedoms are a good thing and that you believe central Government is the answer. At least that would be honest.
Definitely worth reading in full.
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Bridget Phillipson is an utter disgrace.
Yet another bigoted and profoundly stupid charlatan working for the bigoted and profoundly stupid bureaucrat and charlatan masquerading as PM.
Neither Phillipson nor Stalin are anything like as nice as your descriptions.
What a brilliant takedown.
This should be flagged on the BBC and all MSM.
It won’t be though.
Brave woman!
She knows what she is talking about and she believes in it.
One thing all marxo-fascist governments rely on is unquestioning compliance. With people like Katherine Birbalsingh their power would crumble.
Of course she is completely right.
The entire government consists of a group of clueless, talentless, incompetent, useless individuals.
Starmer, Reeves, Lammy, Phillipson, Milliband – the whole cabal is just an utter embarrassment to Britain.
You missed Rayner, and a few hundred other empty vessels.
Imagine if we had people of that quality running the dept of education…
Wouldn’t it be great if there were no dept of education and all schools were independent paid for by vouchers issued to patents through the tax system.
Can’t have that – far too much choice, people might choose the ‘wrong’ answer!
Hockey sticks at dawn…
…Birbalsingh United 7 – 0 Phillistine Wanderer
“You lucky bas**d it could have been 10”
What Paul Weston said ( and kudos to Katherine for one very fine roasting of one half of the dreadful ‘bob twins’ );
”The greatest problem facing England and the English is that all the people in all the state institutions which control every aspect of our lives are communists, and as such wish to destroy England and the English.”
Something they seem to be managing pretty well, I’d say…
I’m reminded of a recent DT item on Brighton schools, where they plan on bussing pupils miles in direct contradiction of their “active travel” obsession. Hypocrites all.
I love Katherine Birbalsingh (not literally) and her ideas for how schools should operate, but am a bit queasy about her political tone of voice, which allows Labour to dismiss the arguments simply because she is a Tory.
I don’t see where she says she’s a Tory.
Anyway, everything is political, so I don’t think the argument can be avoided and she’s right to raise it. This is a government with a socialist ideology (well, supposedly – who knows what they really think) and they’ve acted accordingly in many areas since taking office. I think it’s great that people are shown that there’s an association with crap education policies and socialism.
Yes education is lousy with politics, especially in WHAT is taught, but HOW it is taught should be based simply on what works.
I’m sure I read somewhere that she denies and has convincingly refuted being a Tory.
It wasn’t in Wikipedia but it’ll do for a start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Birbalsingh#Political_views
Perhaps not a Tory but possibly a conservative thinker.
So what if she is – we’d need to be a little more Trump and just brazen these things out, rather than denying – you’ll never please them so why bother, f**k em
I love her literally. What a truly wonderful woman!
Blimey! A man on here who has something positive to say about a woman for a change.
A woman that’s also in a leadership position, no less.
. Your kind are in short supply round these parts.
Here, have one of these
I think you’re a tad too touchy. I’m a woman; I’ve made that clear on many occasions and I don’t see a great deal of anti-woman bigotry.
Not touchy at all, but I’ve been commenting regularly for 3.5+ years now and I speak from extensive experience. Interesting you’re a woman but you never have anything to say in support of women or pipe up when it’s the same names, again and again on here, making disparaging remarks and generally slagging off women in general. Cowardice or a misogynist’s submissive ‘handmaiden’…? Hmmm. Just as well I don’t require anyone to fight my battles for me or have my back around here, isn’t it? Because all there ever is is crickets.
I’ve got your back Mogs
Cheers Liz.
I think women posters are few and far between. The ones who aren’t afraid to share their opinions, whether popular or not, and challenge any sexist bollocks are near non-existant.
Well you know what they say:” Better to die on your feet, a ballsy shield maiden, than live on your knees, a submissive handmaiden.”
It seems some are afflicted with a bad case of wilfull blindness…..
Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/cN7L_cte7PA?si=JByV-kov4ynDEQ6z
Nah! Go for it Katherine these people are playground bullies (as well as communists) and the only language a bully understands is to bully them back they soon cower away. Assume Katherine understands that being a teacher and an outstanding one.
What on earth makes you think she’s a Tory? I would hope she inclines more towards Reform
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Step by step marching along the road of dumbing down and not owning anything but being happy. How do we stop these fools?
Katherine and Phillipson is a staggering miscontest
.
What I can’t get over is that Phillipson was so badly prepared. Anyfulekno that Katharine Birbalsingh is not to be messed with.
Clearly assumed she’d be cowed by the majesty of an MP… not. In fact, I think the best way to describe the outcome was ‘the education secretary got her ass kicked’
The “Teaching” Unions and Education Bureaucrats hate Academies as much as they hate Private Schools which the plebs can just about afford to access.
It’s they who are driving the destruction; Phillipson is just their useful Marxist idiot.
Anyone who can afford it should be investing in a private tutor for STEM subjects and making the time to educate their children in neglected/warped subjects such as History, themselves. History is easy; there are so many places to visit which can be used to teach it and they don’t all have to cost much money. Our history is a story: tell it.
Well said indeed. But tbh it doesn’t take the “brain of Britain” to know that these people couldn’t give a tuppenny ha’penny f… about this country or educating its people. They are communists through and through. All they want is their Marxist ideology to be taught everywhere and enforce their dystopian agenda on the world.That is their aim. It needs to be destroyed.
Katharine, I am forwarding your name to Elon Musk with the hope he will forward your name to President Trump. The USA education dept is one big mess. They could sure use a successful leader such as your self. It would mean a move to the USA. Your academy should be a role model for the department of education in this country. Instead you are second guessed at every turn and forced to follow a department of education curriculum and politicians unfit for purpose. I will pray for you and your tremendous school(s).
No no no, we need you here Katharine. Please don’t leave us!
Daily sceptic, do not stop here. Continue to write about Katherine’s successes, support her in every way and question the dept of education’s plans for curriculum, academies and the whole of education in this country! These kids are our FUTURE. Look after them and the people giving them the education they deserve. Thank you.
Birbalsingh should have Phillipsons job..
She’s not shallow enough for that…
I sincerely hope Katharine Biirbalsingh can instil in her students that same ability to think for themselves and speak up when they encounter something that is wrong, unjust or asinine. Like the education secretary herself.
She’s leading by example. I’m sure her pupils can see that and cheer her on from the side lines. What a great role model
Wow. What a great response. I wonder if Phillipson will budge.