'OUR EDUCATION SECRETARY? A PATRONISING, CULTURAL MARXIST'

Britain's 'strictest teacher' Katharine Birbalsingh says it straight. At her Wembley school Dylan Jones meets a powerhouse waging a one-woman war against the Government's education reforms

- 

As you enter the headmistress’s office in the Michaela Community School opposite Wembley Park station the first thing you see is a life-size cut-out of Russell Crowe as Maximus in Gladiator. As I smile, Katharine Birbalsingh — famously called the strictest teacher in the country but having met her, also quite possibly the best — recites the famous pre-battle speech: “Hold the line, stay with me, what we do in life echoes in eternity.”

It’s something she’s always saying to the staff. “I hold the line all the time, because if you don't, gradually things unravel.” So passionate is she that she helped organise a rally last Sunday, to protest about what she considers to be the “stupid” Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Hundreds of teachers, parents and children marched from Whitehall to Parliament Square, angry about the Government's proposals to limit the number of branded school uniform items and introduce stronger restrictions on home education. She has also written a letter to the Lords explaining why the Government's decision to alter their education strategy is wrong-headed. Because Birbalsingh doesn’t mince her words.

“The Government are trying to make small changes that will forever affect our children’s education for the worse forever. They want to alter the rules concerning the school uniform, only allowing three items to be branded, which means that girls can still sexualise their clothes, and boys can still push their trousers down and heighten their masculinity. When the national football teams walk onto the pitch together, they are all in uniform, and that’s what schools should be like. But Bridget Phillipson doesn’t understand that.”

But then, according to Birbalsingh, the Education Secretary doesn’t understand much.