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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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Why are you going out in protest next week
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Yeah, well, and I'm hoping all of your viewers will join us
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That's Sunday, 2pm, Whitehall. That's next Sunday, 18th of May. Why? Because there are so many of us who are unhappy
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with this government's way of dealing with children. So there are the people who want the government
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to have a conversation around smartphone access for children. There are the home educators who are very upset about the various freedoms that will be taken from them by the current well-being in schools bill
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There are the school leaders who are very upset about what this bill will do to our ability to run our schools successfully
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There are quite a number of people who are upset with what the government is doing to children
0:51
And I just think they've got it all upside down. Keir Starmer wants everyone to watch that
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Adolescence. Adolescence, there we go. He wants all the kids to watch that
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And he doesn't seem to understand that the kids already know what's happening in adolescence, they're online
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He finds it shocking because he doesn realize but they already know this stuff The decision that needs to be made is should we allow them access to that online world
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unsupervised, whenever they want, in classrooms, in their bedrooms, where some of them end up quite literally dead
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I mean, I don't want to exaggerate, but the fact is, children's lives are put in danger by their unsupervised access to the Internet
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And then there's just the stuff that our school leaders are very well aware of the necessity of uniform, the necessity of being able to have all routes of recruitment open to us for teachers
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The recruitment is a massive problem. And the education secretary is about to shut down one of those possible routes
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Behavior is a huge problem in our schools. What she's doing with uniform will increase behavior problems in our schools
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The issues that are problematic for us, the things that she's gotten that bill will make it worse for us
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And of course, the public don't really understand bills. I get it
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But the fact is, those of us who know, we know it. We're going out to march on Sunday
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That really just to say look we are upset Please listen to us She hasn been to visit the top schools in the country that have amazing progress She isn talking to us successful school leaders and finding out why it is we are successful
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I've actually written 829 letters and dropped them at the House of Lords just this week
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I took a big box. It was very heavy of all the letters and took them to the House of Lords to ask the Lords to put in the five amendments that we school leaders will want
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But I know that the home educators, for instance, are asking for over 200 amendments to this bill because they know that their freedoms will be taken away to be able to home educate their children
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I guess the reforms that were made by the Conservative government over the time that they were in power have vastly improved education
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Any sensible education secretary would continue in that vein. But I think that she thinks that she must undo what the Tories achieved simply because she's Labour
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And that crazy Why not just continue in the same manner and keep improving our schools To be fair she might not be able to continue in the same manner What do you make of these rumours that she about to be reshuffled out Well that would be a very clever thing from Keir Starmer
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I mean, she's clearly made a pig's ear of all of this
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She hasn't listened to school leaders. She isn't interested in improving schools
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A clever move from Keir Starmer would be to move her on and put somebody in who is willing to discuss and interact with us school leaders and listen to what works
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I mean, ultimately, that's the job of an education secretary, to respect us school leaders and not think as they themselves
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the Department for Education, their official response to me was she doesn't need any lectures
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She's lived it. And this response of, well, we know what's better for children in schools than you do
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because anybody who's been to school knows what's good for children. That's just wrong
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Our profession is a profession just like any others, and we deserve respect
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and we deserve the politicians at least listening to us, those of us who have been super successful
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to see, well, how is it that you get disadvantaged children succeeding
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How do you enable social mobility
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