To not understand why Katharine Birbalsingh is so controversial

Are you seriously suggesting she should deny JP as a visitor?

Why?

He is an academic who is only controversial in as far as some people disagree with him not in that he is a danger to children.

I thought you were all for children learning to think?

Yet you think only some views are acceptable? And JP is so terrible he shouldn't be allowed in a school??

KB allows anyone to visit and doesn't discriminate based on their views.

It's very very odd that you think she should.

Michaela has lots of visitors weekly.

Anyone can apply to visit.

Anyone interested should then make a judgement.

Of course she can vet who can visit her school, she's the headteacher.

Are you seriously suggesting that Jordan Peterson could rock up to any school in the country and the school would simply have to let him in and let him have lunch with the kids?

Most 6th forms are selective

JP doesn't need KB to promote him 🤣 🤣

Anyone can visit Michaela.
Loads of people do.

Do you think she should vet who can visit and not allow 'controversial' people to visit?

Who gets to decide which mainstream academics are too controversial to be allowed?

The arguments here are getting more ridiculous:

She's controversial because controversial people visit her school.
The people who visit are controversial because a former archbishop didn't like his book.

Get a grip people.

Yes - but fortunately not in a school like Michaela.

PS No idea why my italicisation using ^ symbols did not work. Meant to set off KB’s quotation to Parliament. Apologies

Cont’d

…. we have put rather a lot of effort into this question and believe it to be complex

Here is KB’s incisive testimony to Parliament in April 2022, in her role as Social Mobility Commissioner for HMG. I quote from the BBC website: (Recall that 16% of girls at Michaela were doing physics A level as opposed to 23-24% nationally, is about 50% more in relative terms nationally are choosing physics than at Michaela)

^Just from my own knowledge of these things, physics isn’t something that girls tend to fancy. They don’t want to do it.

I just think they don’t like it. There’s a lot od hard maths in there that I think they would rather not do. That’s not to say there isn’t hard stuff to do in biology and chemistry - there is, but it’s not mathematical.^

Asked to explain [further] why she thought girls would be less likely to make the choice [of doing physics] she responded:

^I mean I don’t know. I can’t say - I mean I’m not an expert at that sort of thing.That’s what they say.

We’re certainly not out there campaigning for more girls to do physics - we wouldn’t do that, and I wouldn’t want to do that.

I mean, I want them to do what they want to do^.

A bright child could have provided more compelling testimony. Above, @noblegiraffe did.

I also want girls and boys to do what they want to do. But the statistics on suboptimal GCSE science preparation (I quoted above) and lagging physics uptake by girls at Michaela, together with KB’s complete lack of interest in exploring any of this, strongly suggest bias, a profit motive or both.

By now I have sourced my opinions rather credibly, @Ddakji . I am still interested in your sources as requested above. In HE STEM we have put rather a lot

Have you ever taught children? Very few are ever’compliant worker bees’

Slightly off-topic, but still related. Does anyone on this thread send their child to The Swan school in Oxford? It seems to be modelled on Michaela, with very strict rules, silent corridors and family dining.

I was initially not keen, but after listening to two friends who are secondary school teachers tell me about how dire the behaviour they deal with is, I am now considering it for my child, as we are just outside the catchment (although secondary is a way off).

On the thread topic, I think Katharine B is probably onto something, in terms of her approach, but the right-wing talking head stuff makes me a bit uncomfortable.

She is deliberately controversial and her approach to schools doesn't encourage children to think for themselves, just to become compliant worker bees. The curriculum is depressingly narrow and I would think her school would be a depressing place to learn or to teach.

The problem isn't that she talks to Jordan Peterson, the problem is that she invited him to her school and used her school to promote him.

As you can see, he is a pretty divisive figure.

The topic of this thread is 'why is Katharine Birbalsingh controversial' and an obvious response is that she deliberately courts controversy. Inviting Peterson to her school is one of these acts.

I know a lot of teachers and ex teachers and not one of them have said student behaviour is the reason they left the profession.
They have cited over restricted senior management team though and having their professionalism constantly undermined by not being allowed to show judgment in how to teach or how to deal with children. They also cite how much preparation they have to do and how many hours they have to work in their own time. For the most part the children are not the reason they left the profession.

What did you think was feeble?

And children in those types of schools have actually wet themselves and girls have had to sit in soiled pants because of not being able to go to the toilet during lesson times. The toilets are only accessible at break when there often isn't enough time because of the volume of children using them
If woul question any school who has that sort of regime.

Where did she say she believed girls can’t do physics and maths? Because in the talk she gave covering this, she reported that girls didn’t do physics a level in great numbers (a fact), she didn’t know why but posited that they didn’t want to do the harder maths. She also said that 16% of girls did do physics a levels at Michaela.

None of which adds up to “girls can’t do physics and maths” in my understanding.

I have. I thought she was very feeble.

I don’t know why and nor does KB. She didn’t say they couldn’t, just that they didn’t and she didn’t know why.

Maybe google her words?

Because in a way it actually is selective. It is a free school and only parents who think their children will benefit from such an approach will send their children there.
I also think it has a higher exclusion rate than anywhere else. So children who don't fit in are expelled
The sixth form is selective.

Nope.
This former archbishop has so far been the only evidence provided on the thread for the ludicrous claims that Katherine Birbalsinghs school is bad because she talks to Jordan Peterson.

Personally I think any claims of evil by association are unjustifiable a former archbishop critiquing his book in the guardian seems a particularly pathetic reason.

You are deliberately confusing two subjects and you know you are.

Ah if a former archbishop critiques one of books then head teachers who speak him are obviously bad.

Good logic and evidence.

By disputed do you mean "antisemetic"? Cultural Marxism is a far right, antisemetic, conspiracy theory.

It wasn't a vicar it was a former archbishop, and the book was on more than Christianity.

In regards to KB I had a similar controversial head when I was at school. However the people who heard of my head were educationalists including teachers. So random parents didn't get to hear my head's views unless they deliberately sought them out. (I've since found papers on my head's views.)