Emily Thompson

An incredibly powerful and authoritative open letter from Katharine Birbalsingh, the UK's most demonstrably successful Head Teacher, to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson. The letter lays bare the dangers of Labour's muddled and deeply counter-productive education bill - currently going through Parliament. Tony Blair understood and championed the huge benefits of "academy schools" – mercifully free from the dead, statist hand of local authority control. He openly acknowledged that state schools such as Michaela in north-west London, founded and so brilliantly led by Birbalsingh, provide life-changing opportunities for countless children from deprived backgrounds – as Blair said, "benefitting some of the poorest families in the poorest parts of Britain". We are now seeing that Starmer's Labour administration is very different. It is, in fact deeply ideological –pursuing policies, in education and elsewhere, solely because they are statist, rather than because they make sense. Academy schools work - the evidence is completely overwhelming. Some 80pc of secondary and 40pc of primary schools in England have chosen academy status - which is why state schools in England, in stark contrast to other parts of the UK, are now fast-rising to the top of international performance league tables, as Birbalsingh's letter explains. Will Blair @InstituteGC and @Andrew_Adonis robustly and publicly speak out against a schools bill which dismantles they academy schools they helped to create - an act of educational vandalism? Will they defend future generations of kids from low-income families – who would thrive at Michaela and England's other academy schools? Or will they remain schtum, tight-lipped in the name of party loyalty? And will Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson even reply to the heartfelt public letter below, based on years of truly stunning educational achievement, from the UK's most successful and widely-respected Head Teacher? We shall see ..... @Miss_Snuffy @bphillipsonMP ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️