Education Secretary says Birbalsingh’s account of meeting ‘not as it was’
Bridget Phillipson met Katharine Birbalsingh, who has been commonly described as Britain’s strictest headteacher, earlier this month.
The Education Secretary said high-profile school leader Katharine Birbalsingh’s account of a discordant meeting between them was “not as it was”.
Bridget Phillipson met Ms Birbalsingh, who has been commonly described as Britain’s strictest headteacher, earlier this month, after she criticised the proposed academy reforms in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
According to government minutes of the meeting, the Education Secretary asked Ms Birbalsingh to “lower her tone” and “allow her to finish her sentences”.
Ms Birbalsingh subsequently said she was not given “any water to drink” in the meeting, adding that Ms Phillipson’s team were “being horrible” and “trying to intimidate us”.
After being played Ms Birbalsingh’s account of the meeting, Ms Phillipson told Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme: “Look, that’s just not as it was.
“I have meetings all of the time with school leaders. I spend a lot of time travelling around the country meeting with school leaders, and meeting with school leaders here in the Department for Education when I’m in London.
“I’m not going to comment on private meetings held in good faith because I want people to be able to express their views openly and candidly.”
Ms Birbalsingh, headteacher of Michaela Community School in Brent, north-west London, wrote an article in the Spectator in January which accused Ms Phillipson of being “blinded by a Marxist ideology”.
She said she was concerned the Education Secretary would “destroy the huge gains made over the last decade”.
Government minutes of a meeting between them on February 3, obtained by Schools Week under the Freedom of Information Act, claim Ms Birbalsingh repeatedly interrupted the Education Secretary and asked if she was introducing the Bill because of her own ambitions to lead the Labour Party.
The minutes drawn up by the Department for Education (DfE) said: “The SoS (Phillipson) stated she would need to ask KB (Birbalsingh) to lower her tone, and asked they remove the heat from the discussion.
“The SoS emphasised she would appreciate if KB would allow her to finish her sentences so that she can address KB’s questions and concerns in turn.”
The minutes record that Ms Birbalsingh “noted that as she herself did not understand politics, she should not expect the SoS to understand education because the SoS has not been a headteacher”.
It claims that Ms Birbalsingh said colleagues in Westminster told her to ask if the reason the Education Secretary is introducing the Bill “is because she wants to become the leader of the Labour party”.
In another article for the Spectator just days after the meeting, Ms Birbalsingh accused the Education Secretary of not being “interested” in schools.
Ms Birbalsingh has contested some of the Government’s minutes of the meeting, including a section where it claimed the headteacher asked Ms Phillipson if she “hates maths”.
The minutes said Ms Phillipson offered for officials to meet Ms Birbalsingh and her team to explain the measures in the Bill, and the head “refused this offer”, but Ms Birbalsingh has said “that never happened”.
