Britain’s strictest headteacher has accused Labour‘s Education Secretary of showing ‘her Marxist outlook in every decision’.
Katharine Birbalsingh, who co-founded and leads the Michaela Community School in Brent, north London, told a podcast Bridget Phillipson has Marxism ‘coursing through her veins’ as she hit out at government education policy.
A new bill under consideration by Parliament would ensure all state schools had the same pay scales, followed the national curriculum, employ only qualified or qualifying teachers and limit uniforms to three branded items.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will also support free breakfast clubs in every state-funded primary school in England.
But critics – including Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch – have said the changes should not also apply to academies, which currently have the independence to set their own pay scales, teacher requirements and curriculum.
Speaking to the Planet Normal podcast, Ms Birbalsingh said: ‘I do see a sense of Marxism that is coursing through the veins of the [new education] bill.
‘Bridget Phillipson is looking at this in a manner that is just not very informed. You see her Marxist outlook in every decision that she’s making.
‘Social mobility is not something that you can just place upon children, you need to inspire them to take ownership of their own lives and jump over the obstacles that are in front of them.
‘They need to feel like they belong to their school and wear their uniform. They need to work hard to get grades at GCSE that will compete with the boys at Eton.
‘They need to own their lives and push themselves forward. It’s about self-empowerment, it is not about holding your hand out to the state and saying: “Please give me more.”
‘And that is unfortunately what a Marxist view will do.’
Ms Birbalsingh previously said the bill would harm the quality of education for young people.
The Department for Education this week claimed an amendment will be tabled to make it clear that there will be a floor on pay with no upper limit for all state schools.
Other measures contained in the Bill include allowing councils to open new schools that are not academies and it will end the forced academisation of schools, run by local authorities, that are identified as a concern by Ofsted.
All state schools, including academies, will be required to teach the national curriculum and the Government also plans to bolster child protection, with a new register of all home-schooled children in England.
The Tories have slammed the bill as ‘education vandalism’ and claimed it is a ‘highly ideological, un-evidenced onslaught on school freedoms’ that would water down school standards.
Tory MP Neil O’Brien, the shadow education minister, branded the Bill ‘a disaster’.
He said: ‘I have worked in politics for 25 years and it is one of the most dumb and tragic things I can remember. It’s an act of pure vandalism, abolishing academies in all but name.’
