Mercifully, Katharine Birbalsingh has always been an acquired taste.
There are, thankfully, examples all over the country, in several walks of life, of people who have defied class and race barriers to climb the ladder. They are the perfect antidote to Birbalsingh, who’s tagged by some as “Britain’s Strictest Headmistress”.
In October she was appointed chair of the Government’s Social Mobility Commission, responsible for monitoring and promoting social mobility across the UK.
The only trouble is, she, er, appears not to believe in social mobility. Not for half the country anyway.
She believes society should stop obsessing about “rags to riches” tales of poor students getting into Oxbridge.
Doing better than your parents just by getting a job, she reckons, is a social mobility win.
In other words, stay in your lane.
Really? So we shouldn’t teach our kids that their reach should exceed their grasp? Shouldn’t we encourage them to break into the universities that tend to produce the people who run the country?
Right now there are parents across creeds, cultures and the country working hard to ensure their children can defy the odds.
The elites, of course, clutch their pearls at the idea that sections of the great unwashed could be polluting their space.
Birbalsingh ’s comments help them but are confusing given her self-confessed “mission has been to drive high achievement, high standards and create resilient students” at her school, Michaela Community in Wembley, North West London.
An above-average number of pupils there are classed as disadvantaged, yet results are as impressive as the methods.
No talking in school corridors, pupils walk in single file. Detention for messy work, lateness or not having a pen to write with. Simple but effective.
The school has been rated “outstanding” in all areas by Ofsted and is one of the best performing in the UK.
It is hard, then, to understand why the bar should be set high for her kids but not for yours.
Keep motivating your kids. Birbalsingh’s comments are divisive. It is easy to see why the Government went for her.
