Britain's strictest headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh has called on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to do the "clever thing" and remove Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson from her post.Speaking to GB News, Birbalsingh claimed that the Labour Government has made a "pig's ear" of the education system in Britain, and that Phillipson "isn't interested" in improving the country's schools.FULL STORY HERE.
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00:00Why are you going out in protest next week?
00:04Yeah, well, and I'm hoping all of your viewers will join us.
00:08That's Sunday, 2 p.m. Whitehall.
00:11That's next Sunday, 18th of May.
00:14Why? Because there's so many of us who are unhappy
00:16with this government's way of dealing with children.
00:19So there are the people who want the government
00:22to have a conversation around smartphone access for children.
00:26There are the home educators who are very upset
00:30about the various freedoms that will be taken from them
00:33by the current Well-Being in Schools bill.
00:36There are the school leaders who are very upset
00:38about what this bill will do to our ability
00:42to run our schools successfully.
00:45There are quite a number of people who are upset
00:48with what the government is doing to children.
00:51And I just think they've got it all upside down.
00:54Keir Starmer wants everyone to watch that program.
01:00Adolescence.
01:01There we go.
01:02He wants all the kids to watch that.
01:04And he doesn't seem to understand that the kids already know
01:06what's happening in adolescence.
01:07They're online.
01:08He finds it shocking because he doesn't realize,
01:11but they already know this stuff.
01:13The decision that needs to be made is,
01:15should we allow them access to that online world,
01:18unsupervised, whenever they want, in classrooms,
01:22in their bedrooms, where some of them end up quite literally dead?
01:28I mean, I don't want to exaggerate,
01:30but the fact is children's lives are put in danger
01:34by their unsupervised access to the internet.
01:37And then there's just the stuff that us school leaders
01:39are very well aware of, the necessity of uniform,
01:43the necessity of being able to have all routes of recruitment
01:47open to us for teachers.
01:49Recruitment is a massive problem.
01:51And the education secretary is about to shut down
01:53one of those possible routes.
01:55Behavior is a huge problem in our schools.
01:58What she's doing with uniform will increase behavior problems
02:01in our schools.
02:03The issues that are problematic for us,
02:05the things that she's gotten that bill,
02:07will make it worse for us.
02:08And, of course, the public don't really understand bills.
02:13I get it.
02:14But the fact is, those of us who know, we know it.
02:17We're going out to march on Sunday.
02:20That's really just to say, look, we are upset.
02:24Please listen to us.
02:26She hasn't been to visit the top schools in the country
02:30that have amazing progress.
02:32She isn't talking to us successful school leaders
02:35and finding out why it is we are successful.
02:38I've actually written 829 letters
02:41and dropped them at the House of Lords just this week.
02:45I took a big box.
02:47It was very heavy of all the letters
02:49and took them to the House of Lords
02:51to ask the Lords to put in the five amendments
02:56that we school leaders will want.
02:58But I know that the home educators, for instance,
03:01are asking for over 200 amendments to this bill
03:05because they know that their freedoms will be taken away
03:08to be able to home educate their children.
03:10I just, the reforms that were made
03:13by the Conservative government
03:14over the time that they were in power
03:16have vastly improved education.
03:20Any sensible education secretary
03:22would continue in that vein.
03:25But I think that she thinks
03:28that she must undo what the Tories achieved
03:31simply because she's Labour.
03:33And that's crazy.
03:34Why not just continue in the same manner
03:36and keep improving our schools?
03:38To be fair, she might not be able
03:39to continue in the same manner.
03:41What do you make of these rumours
03:42that she's about to be reshuffled out?
03:44Well, that would be a very clever thing
03:47from Keir Starmer.
03:48I mean, she's clearly made a pig's ear of all of this.
03:52She hasn't listened to school leaders.
03:55She isn't interested in improving schools.
03:58A clever move from Keir Starmer
04:00would be to move her on
04:02and put somebody in who is willing
04:04to discuss and interact with us school leaders
04:08and listen to what works.
04:09I mean, ultimately, that's the job
04:11of an education secretary
04:12to respect us school leaders
04:14and not think, as they themselves,
04:18the Department for Education,
04:19their official response to me was,
04:21she doesn't need any lectures.
04:23She's lived it.
04:24And this response of,
04:26well, we know what's better
04:28for children in schools than you do
04:30because anybody who's been to school
04:32knows what's good for children.
04:34That's just wrong.
04:35Our profession is a profession
04:38just like any others
04:39and we deserve respect.
04:40And we deserve the politicians
04:43at least listening to us,
04:45the ones of us,
04:46those of us who have been super successful
04:48to see, well,
04:49how is it that you get disadvantaged children succeeding?
04:53How do you enable social mobility?