The new chair of the UK Government’s independent Social Mobility Commission (SMC), headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh, will call for working-class children to focus on making “smaller steps” in life rather than trying to get into the country’s best universities.
In her first speech as chair headmistress Birbalsingh is expected to promote a “broader view of social mobility, for a wider range of people, who want to improve their lives, sometimes in smaller steps.”
Who is Katharine Birbalsingh?
Born in New Zealand in 1973, Katharine Birbalsingh is the founder and headteacher of Michaela Community School in North London, where more than 80% of pupils went on to attend top-tier Russell Group universities in 2021.
In October last year she was appointed as head of the SMC, which aims to “create a United Kingdom where the circumstances of birth do not determine outcomes in life”.
Recently she was the star of an ITV documentary called ‘Britain’s Strictest Headmistress’ in which she said: “However poor you are, if you are grateful for what you have you are happier”.
Although Birbalsingh herself attended Oxford University her speech will call for a move away from the rags to riches tales of “caretaker’s daughter goes to Oxbridge and becomes a top surgeon” and ask for “smaller steps” in social mobility to be celebrated.
What has she done?
Birbalsingh ran an anonymous blog during the late 2000s which detailed her experiences of teaching in a state school, before rising to prominence at the Conservative Party Conference in 2010, where she made a speech in which she called the education system “broken”.
Following the speech she lost her job as a deputy head at a school in London.
In 2014 she established the Michaela Community School in a deprived area of London and has since made it into one of the highest-ranking schools in the UK.
Why is she important?
As chair of the SMC she will play a role in influencing UK Government policy concerning social mobility and educational attainment.
What else has she said?
She has previously come under fire for stating that girls tend not to choose physics at A-level because “there’s a lot of hard maths” - a stereotype the Institute of Physics called “outdated”.
Speaking to MPs at a UK Government inquiry into diversity in STEM subjects, Birbalsingh said: “Just from my own knowledge of these things, physics isn't something that girls tend to fancy.
"I just think they don't like it. There's a lot of hard maths in there that I think that they would rather not do.”
She has also been slammed for saying she fears schools will stop teaching Shakespeare by decolonising the curriculum and replace the bard with “any number of different black or female authors”.
Last year she was criticised for stating on Twitter - where she has more than 100k followers - that children are born with “original sin” and need to be “habituated into choosing good over evil” - comments the former UK Government Social Mobility Commissioner, Saeed Atcha, said were “whipping up division”.
Birbalsingh ran an anonymous blog during the late 2000s which detailed her experiences of teaching in a state school, before rising to prominence at the Conservative Party Conference in 2010, where she made a speech in which she called the education system “broken”.
When the UK Government published the Sewell report on race - which was widely condemned as inaccurate - Birbalsingh defended the report by tweeting: “It is always acceptable in our woke culture of 2021 to mercilessly attack black conservatives.
“They have ‘betrayed’ their leftist masters by daring to think for themselves, when they should be grateful.
THAT is institutionalised/cultural racism. And it is everywhere.”
