Michaela Community School in Brent – a state school serving one of London’s most deprived communities – has achieved nearly 70% A and A* grades at A-level, more than double the national average. The results arrive just as Education Secretary Lucy Powell claimed that prioritising academic subjects was ‘letting down’ disadvantaged pupils. The Mail has the story:
Britain’s strictest headmistress is celebrating her pupils achieving almost 70% A and A* grades – more than double the national average.
Katharine Birbalsingh runs Michaela Community School in Brent, north-west London, which prides itself on focusing on academic subjects and a no-nonsense approach to discipline.
Her school outperformed by far the national average of just 28.5% of results being A and A*, despite serving one of the most deprived communities of the country.
It comes after the new Education Secretary, Lucy Powell, said forcing schools to prioritise academic learning was “letting down” disadvantaged pupils.
Reacting this morning, Tory education spokesman Laura Trott said on X: “Looking forward to Lucy Powell explaining how these results will be detrimental to the children involved.”
Figures released by the school this morning show a third of entries were graded A* – against a national average of 9.6%.
And 10% of Ms Birbalsingh’s pupils got all A*s, with two securing places at Oxbridge.
Some 90% of entries were graded at A* to B, and students achieved an average of AAA across all subjects.
Ms Birbalsingh said this morning: “We are delighted with these fantastic results. 11% of students are going to study medicine. 85% will be going off to Russell Group universities.”
Michaela’s extraordinary results means it is in the same league as some of Britain’s top private schools.
In 2025, the proportion of results at Eton College graded A and A* was 78.2%, while for A* only it was 40.2%.
Michaela was only ten percentage points behind both of these figures this year.
Despite serving one of London’s poorest communities, Michaela consistently beats many schools that serve the privileged.
In previous years, it has had the country’s top “Progress 8” score – measuring how well pupils do compared with prior attainment.
Its success has been attributed to its tough discipline and “no excuses” ethos, with all new students taking part in a behaviour “boot camp”.
However, those on the Left of the educational establishment have criticised her back-to-basics approach to discipline and for focusing too narrowly on academic subjects.
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People need to look more closely at this. This Indian-Guyanese-Jamaican-Sikh woman Birbalsingh was a member of the Socialist Workers Party, and like many wealthy Third World immigrants to the West, is steeped in a Marxist sense of “class struggle”, and the envious resentment of Western capitalism, White Men, and the Christianity upon which Western Civilization was founded. She is only masquerading as a “conservative”, and co-founded her school with her fellow Ethnic Indian Suella Braverman, another fake conservative, who also “founded the Africa Justice Foundation in 2010 alongside barristers Cherie Booth and Philip Riches” (Leftist Globalists training Africans as lawyers to demand reparations from the West?)
She first invented for herself the title of “Britain’s Strictest Headteacher”, now self-promoted to “World’s Strictest Headteacher” on at least one Youtube video, and is dedicated to TRAINING THE THIRD WORLD REPLACEMENTS for the White Man. At least 60% of her students are Third World Ethnics, and half of the remaining “white” students are of foreign or mixed ancestry.
Here is a fascinating alternative view of her determined self-promotion, and her creepy obsession with male reproductive anatomy:
The confusing world of Katharine Birbalsingh | Education | The Guardian
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I don’t think she is the weird one
The Michaela school sets high academic standards and is strict on discipline whilst focusing on raising the educational standards of poor, working class children from diverse backgrounds.
The school has about the highest progress 8 score in the country. Children improve from when they enter the school by the time they leave the school. So there is a massive value added for students, which is critical to actually create social mobility for poor children.
The school has achieved this whilst being non selective, year 7 places allocated by Brent Council.
As usual it ain’t complicated…unless it suits whatever your agenda may be to make it so
That woman is an absolute beacon.
If our country (and our education system) weren’t run by numbskulls, she would be lauded and copied in fine detail.
Sidenote: Lucy Powell couldn’t do gel nails for a living, but gets to ‘run Education’.
A complete plank among wooden things.
As for ‘85% will be going off to Russell Group universities’, let’s hope they don’t opt for Cambridge.
I don’t understand. Where on earth has this ridiculous binary choice of academia vs skills come from? There’s a need for both. Some people are far better suited to one than the other. The focus should be on a multifaceted education that provides an opportunity for children to discover what they excel at, which might be mathematics or it might be carpentry. And society needs both of these people.
I agree and my guess is that the head of this school probably would too – but my guess is that the parents want academics because that is what they perceive as “superior” and the school delivers what the customers want. But there’s totally a place for a school with a similar serious approach to learning that teaches other skills. I think there is a lot to be said for the German and Italian systems that have academic and vocational tracks.
Just thought it was a strange article.
I don’t think it’s strange – it’s not meant to be a full discussion of what types of education we should ideally provide, just an example that if you don’t muck about you achieve more – something that can be applied to any “subject”, academic or not. As I said I would hope that the head would agree that there are other equally valid paths.
I think it’s an article about a strange woman.
Why? Genuine question
They need everyone dragged down to the lowest common denominator, as shown by Lucy Powell’s comment at the top regarding academic subjects – it lets down disadvantaged pupils.
Breaking News, not all children are academic, it was Blair that created this issue, wanting everyone going to University – presumably so every child could be indoctrinated into groupthink!
Exactly. That was the sole purpose of the expansion of university attendance – to expand indoctrination to the working class.
Lucy Powell is the lowest common denominator. In the box of chisels, she’s the mallet.
Absolutely spot on! Knowledge is not a pyramid, with doctors, lawyers & physicists at the top. It is a sphere, dotted all around with everything from carpenters to creative artists, journalists, supermarket staff, theologians, binmen, chefs, soldiers, pub landlords, engineers, teachers, biologists, mechanics, businessmen, nurses, parents, cleaners, inventors, bus drivers, farmers and all the rest, each contributing marvellously useful things to humanity.
I hope the lucky/hard working ones who got to Oxbridge have the discipline and sense to ignore the woke zeitgeist of both universities, and definitely do not get suckered into mainstream politics
Yes, but if all schools followed suit, where would we get our Deliveroo drivers & nail technicians? To say nothing of our welfare recipients, the government would have nothing to spend taxpayers money on.
I’m sure if we run short of these highly trained people, we’ll just ship a load more in.
I do wonder if part of the success is down to the cohort being somewhat self-selecting, or rather their parents. Parents who are invested in their kids future success will choose this school, and parents do make a big difference to success.