Katherine Birbalsingh

Admirable Chrichton · **Posted:** Mon Feb 28, 2011 4:08 pm

Katherine Birbalsingh, the teacher who gave that damning speech about the comprehensive system, seems like a bit of an odd character (though she seems to be some conservative martyr figure. She was sacked for breaching the anonymity of child. But she and her followers reckon she was the victim of a left wing stitch up.). She seems to be a bit pissed off that her book "To Miss With Love" has received mixed reviews. It is striking on her blog just how much she sees herself as the potential saviour of the entire education system, and how "afraid" the "system" is of her, the lone renegade voice in the wilderness. Thing is I'm a bit suspicious of her. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but she just strikes me as someone who has a massive chip on her shoulder, and doesn't have the actual talent to back up her lofty ambitions.

Now I don't know her or how decent a teacher she actually was / is. I just have small inklings that she wasn't half as good a teacher as she likes to make out. Stuff like:

*She seems to see education only as a means of kids financially bettering themselves in the future, and seems to have no deeper love of inculcating kids with skills and knowledge.

*She seems to almost dislike the kids she teaches.

*She's a lousy writer (the prose in her blog is fuck awful) and remarkably chippy and defensive in her manner for someone supposedly an Oxbridge bright spark.

*90 percent of people who play the martyr card to this extent, are usually entirely deluded to do so.

I know a few on here have ties to the education system, so I am sure they must have an opinion on her and her claims. I just have a sense that she ain't Joan of Arc as the Tories might like to make out?

hel · **Posted:** Mon Feb 28, 2011 7:56 pm

I share your suspicions AC, she always seems a bit sixth-form, "Look at me, sticking it to the system, they're ALL evil and they only hate me cos I'm the only one in the world who knows the truth, WAKE UP PEOPLE." The secret conspiracy she thinks she's exposing to the world seems to consist of either 1. wild claims with absolutely nothing to back them up (e.g. teachers don't tell off black kids in case it's racist), or 2. stuff everyone already knew anyway (e.g. there are ways of making schools look better, such as choosing easier exam boards). Oh, and her writing is crap too.

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Thu Mar 03, 2011 11:28 pm

She pops up a bit on the Gove thread, as I recall.

Her prominence is classic "experts? I prefer people at the sharp end!" Unfortunately, if union membership is anything to go by, Gove isn't popular at the sharp end. Best look for a lone maverick then. Maybe some superhead from a flourishing academy? Nope? Oh well, Katherine will have to do.

Abernathy · **Posted:** Sun Mar 06, 2011 12:28 am

Decca Aitkenhead in the Guardian did a very efficient demolition job profile piece on her in the Guardian a few weeks ago.

ACG · **Posted:** Sun Mar 06, 2011 12:47 am

ping!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/201 ... nservative

Quote:

"Everyone's so hyped up on this idea that Michael Gove's a Tory so he must be doing what he's doing to help middle-class kids. But that's not true! Michael Gove is a good man! But no one will trust him because he's a Tory."

well, there is also that whole thing of all his ideas being utter shit.

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Sun Mar 06, 2011 12:42 pm

And a Tory.

mattomac · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2011 10:12 am

And he was a journalist once and we all know what they are like.

Picklechu2 · **Joined:** Mon Oct 13, 2008 10:01 pm **Posts:** 639

Her book is book of the week on Radio4 too:(

satnav · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2011 2:26 pm

If she was working her fingers to the bone trying to help disadvantaged kids in a large comprehensive school how did she find time to write a book, maintain a blog and become a Tory activist?

Killer Whale · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2011 3:14 pm

satnav wrote:

If she was working her fingers to the bone trying to help disadvantaged kids in a large comprehensive school how did she find time to write a book, maintain a blog and become a Tory activist?

More on that here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/201 ... NTCMP=SRCH

Bones McCoy · **Joined:** Mon Aug 16, 2010 9:08 am **Posts:** 7326

Killer Whale wrote:

satnav wrote:

If she was working her fingers to the bone trying to help disadvantaged kids in a large comprehensive school how did she find time to write a book, maintain a blog and become a Tory activist?

More on that here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/201 ... NTCMP=SRCH

Beware the saucy picture.

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:44 pm

Is the Guardian not spending a bit too much time on her?

Abernathy · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2011 10:42 pm

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

Is the Guardian not spending a bit too much time on her?

Yes, I think so. She doesn't deserve the attention, quite frankly.

Messianic Trees · **Joined:** Fri Mar 18, 2011 10:50 pm **Posts:** 2834

She's back:

Teachers' unions betray staff, pupils - and British education

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... z1Qr6GlThD

Quote:

In academies or free schools, which are independent of the local authority, unions do not have the same kind of power.
Instead of taxpayers' money going to the local authority, where bureaucrats decide how to use it, the money is given directly to schools and heads decide how it should be spent.

Academies and free schools can set their own pay and conditions (thereby giving heads the option of rewarding good staff financially) and employ non-qualified teachers who haven't been forced to sign up to a union.

Thus, if the centralised state education system is broken up — which will increasingly be the case if Education Secretary Michael Gove's free schools revolution succeeds — unions will no longer be able to call for national strikes with ease.

More importantly, they will no longer be able to protect bad teachers. A more open system will reduce union power.

So it should come as no surprise unions are pumping huge amounts of their members' money into an anti-academy, anti-free school campaign.

Quote:

Wake up, teachers of Britain — you are being duped. Deep down, I know you know it, just as we all know standards have dropped, behaviour is out of control and our children are being failed, year after year.

Unions don't care about teachers. Neither do they care about children. If they did, they wouldn't be going on strike. When you look carefully at what they're doing, it's clear they care only about themselves.

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Fri Jul 01, 2011 1:38 pm

Quote:

and employ non-qualified teachers who haven't been forced to sign up to a union.

The what? Forced to sign up to a union?

Quote:

Instead of taxpayers' money going to the local authority, where bureaucrats decide how to use it, the money is given directly to schools and heads decide how it should be spent.

Absolute bollocks. LEA schools are run by heads and governors.

Quote:

Unions don't care about teachers. Neither do they care about children. If they did, they wouldn't be going on strike. When you look carefully at what they're doing, it's clear they care only about themselves.

Unions obviously consisting of people who aren't teachers.

Quote:

More importantly, they will no longer be able to protect bad teachers.

They won't be able to "protect" good ones either.

Katherine Birbalsingh

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