The woman nicknamed Britain’s strictest headteacher has accused Bridget Phillipson of being a ‘Marxist’ who ‘hates academies’.
Katharine Birbalsingh wrote a blistering open letter to the Education Secretary after the pair met to discuss school improvement.
The letter, published in The Spectator, blasts Ms Phillipson for ‘not knowing her own Bill’ and for trying to make all academies like local authority schools.
Ms Birbalsingh is head of Michaela Community School in North-West London – an academy – which has a deprived intake but delivers among the best GCSE results in the country.
She attributes her school’s success to her no-nonsense attitude, stringent uniform and behaviour policies, and Year 7 ‘boot camps’.
But after the meeting this week, Miss Birbalsingh said she was convinced Mrs Phillipson was trying to ruin schools such as hers, which is an academy and free school.
The headteacher wrote: ‘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.’
She claimed that Ms Phillipson was not able to answer questions on the details of Labour’s School Bill, on issues such as admissions and teacher recruitment.
She wrote: ‘It became apparent to me when we met that you do not appear to know your own Bill… You were the Shadow Education Secretary for three years. It should not be left to school leaders to point out the holes.’
And Ms Birbalsingh accused the minister of not being open about her true intentions. ‘The reality is that your record in Parliament reveals what you really think of academies, which is that you hate them,’ she wrote.
‘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.’
It comes as MPs scrutinise the Bill, which would remove academy freedoms over curriculum, teacher recruitment and pay and conditions.
Labour, however, have now tabled an amendment to say there will be no ‘ceiling’ to what academies can pay their best teachers.
Ms Birbalsingh also criticised Ms Phillipson when she wrote to her about the Bill last month, accusing her of being ‘blinded by Marxist ideology’.
Ms Birbalsingh was a poster girl for the last Tory Government, having been outspoken about the broken condition of state schools.
She was a pioneer of the academies programme and was for a period the chairman of the Social Mobility Commission.
Last night a government source said: ‘The Secretary of State doesn’t need lectures from anyone on importance of a good education for disadvantaged children, she’s lived it.
‘This account is a total work of fiction. [She] was constantly interrupted every time she answered a question during the meeting.’
