‘Strictest head’ warns Government ‘about to totally destroy academies’

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is about to “totally destroy academies” and has failed to “listen” to school leaders, Katharine Birbalsingh has claimed.

Sometimes described as Britain’s strictest headteacher, Ms Birbalsingh suggested a proposed cap on the amount of different branded uniform items a school can demand could hamper teachers’ efforts to improve behaviour.

The headteacher of Michaela Community School in Brent, London, met with Ms Phillipson earlier this month, when they had a heated exchange about the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which the Commons is yet to sign off on.

According to meeting minutes prepared by the Department for Education and obtained by the magazine Schools Week after a freedom of information request, the Education Secretary urged Ms Birbalsingh to “lower her tone and asked they remove the heat from the discussion”.

Asked about the exchange, the headteacher said on Tuesday she thinks Ms Phillipson “believes that because she’s gone to school in Sunderland, that means she’s now an expert on how to teach and how to run a school”.

She told the PA news agency: “I have to say, I was asking her lots of questions, I wasn’t lecturing her.

“But I think she would do well to listen to school leaders and she’s not listening to them, and that’s a worry – that an Education Secretary would simply say, ‘no, I don’t need to listen to you, I already know better than you do’.

“That’s the biggest concern, because she is about to totally destroy academies and I know she believes that she’s going to be helping poor children by doing this.

“She’s actually going to ruin their chances in life, and we won’t see it right away.

“The thing about education is that it takes many years before those changes embed and I am desperately worried.

“There are other school leaders who have spoken out, and lots of them don’t feel they can speak out, even though privately they are very worried about this Bill.”

The Bill, if agreed to, would set a limit on mandatory branded school uniform items.

Primary schools would only be allowed to demand parents buy a maximum of three different types of branded items of uniform each year, rising to four items at secondary school.

Attending the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc) conference in east London, Ms Birbalsingh said: “To give you an example – uniform.

“Bridget Phillipson is going to reduce the number of branded items that a school can have to three, and that’s to include sport as well as the normal school uniform.

“Whenever anyone comes to visit us and they say ‘our school’s in difficulty, what can we do to make it better?’, I explain about broken windows theory, I explain that you need to begin with uniform, I explain how to do it.

“We need uniform way less. Those schools are desperate for those branded items in order to turn those schools around.

“Bridget Phillipson is not a school leader, so she doesn’t know about broken windows theory, and about uniform, and how when you want to improve behaviour you need to begin with uniform.”

The headteacher also said she was “very much against” using artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom, a day after royal family member and actor Sophie Winkleman, styled as Lady Frederick Windsor, said “schools should be backing away from the neurological junk food of digital learning”.

Ms Birbalsingh said: “Your brain remembers stuff if you write it down, if you read it.

“The reason why our children are so literate and so articulate is because they do loads of reading and writing in the classroom.

“If you’re on a screen, you’re just not going to learn as much and the business of being on a screen actually dumbs you down, so that is devastating for kids that come from more challenging backgrounds.

“We strongly advise our families not to give them smartphones at all, so obviously smartphones aren’t allowed in school, but we actually advise them just not to give them smartphones at all.”

Winkleman, known for playing Big Suze in Channel 4 comedy Peep Show, spoke on Monday at the Arc conference, when she told activists: “Why is digitally transporting a child to the Egyptian pyramids better than that child imagining it?

“This kind of jazz-hands immersion as an engagement tool doesn’t work.

“It negates the need to imagine, rendering the pupil a passive rather than an active learner.”

The actor said: “The fact that AI will soon outperform humans in many areas means schools should be backing away from the neurological junk food of digital learning, alert to the fact that it’s counterproductive to learn anyway from an instantly ageing system, and teaching their pupils the deeply human skills, which AI will have a harder time replacing.”#

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We would not comment on what was a private meeting, held in good faith.

“As the Education Secretary said in her speech at the CSJ, debate around education policy is welcome, and ministers will always meet with a wide range of stakeholders, with a range of different views.”