AIBU to think the Education Secretary interview with Gemma Collins was a mistake?

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I don't think they do. After all, that misery is shared across all classes except, I suppose, those who can afford to buy the education their child needs. What Bridget Phillipson seems to hate is people who are both bright and inconsiderate enough to point out the deficiencies in her proposals - hence the way she tried to characterise it as lawyers protecting their income, when the reality is that these proposals will keep lawyers very busy for years to come.

I suspect that the whole GC thing was a PR initiative, and no-one had the sense to see that it was going to fall like a lead balloon, particularly given that it was timed just after the demonstration and the deadline for entering a response to the White Paper, when parents and carers would be feeling particularly despondent about the prospective loss of their children's rights. If Phillipson had any sense, she would have binned it after the first video, rather than trying to defend it.

I didn't know who she was. She looks like Diana Dors in a school uniform.

The labour party really hate working class people don't they? The absolute misery that securing an education can cause, for both sen kids and bullied kids and they're taking the piss out of struggling people, parents and children.

I hope everyone involved in this shitshow gets the life they deserve.

All I’m asking you to do is learn whilst you’re there.

I’m sure that intervention will make all the difference. Thanks Gemma!

I'd like to see the video of the Education Secretary and the meeting with the headmistress of the Michaela school whose pupils achieve amazing exam results...if they haven't managed to close it down.

I give up.

It must be a reverse. To demonstrate why we need a population that is better educated than Gemma collins.

My mum who was a teacher and all her teacher friends would have no idea who Gemma is, they might think she’s good to help kids study but that’s about it.

I saw this. How is it congruous to say she has a g in maths and still couldn't give a toss that she doesn't know what pi is, but that kids must go into their educational setting and be fabulous!

What does be fabulous mean? Because the way she's storming about in a mockery of a school j uniform looks like be fabulous means go in and have a laugh and don't take your education seriously.

Phillipson stating that people who are struggling with this messaging are snobs with no sense of humour seems to also be of the opinion that while attendance in school isn't optional, getting your head down and doing your best is!

I think I'm finding it particularly difficult as having been to a comprehensive school not too far from Phillipson but I'm guessing that was a completely different environment to the one that got her to Oxford, my school really was a race to the bottom where bright kids used to have to get things wrong on purpose as a strategy for not being singled out.

Oh god it is getting worse. They’ve now put out a clip of what GC would do if she was education secretary for the day…

‘I’d do a whole morning shout-
out. Everyone tune into me, the GC. All I’m asking you to do is learn whilst you’re there. Now go to school hunnies, go to college, go to uni and have a fabulous day.”

FMl is this really what we’ve descended to. Gahhhhh. I think 95% of the population would have something more thoughtful to say.

Absolutely bat shit advice for putting the GC on this interview. I suspect as pp said they think it will appeal to chav parents and give hope that you can have a successful career without passing qualifications. Gemma doing well in I’m A Celebrity must’ve swung their decision to involve her too. I can’t stand the woman personally, I’ve seen her in the wild in a Romford bar frequented by Towie types.

Schools are also waiting for the updated child protection guidelines which will need to be implemented in time for September but still aren’t out and the summer holidays are approaching.

Seeing the DfE fannying around on shit like this instead of getting the statutory safeguarding guidance out is rather frustrating.

I don't know much detail but they are making sweeping changes to sen provision in school that people are very worried about and these skits appeared the day after there was a consultation on Sen provision that many parents, teachers and other people who will be affected will have spent a lot of time thinking about and carefully contributing to.

Families are frustrated, are desperate for their children to have a suitable education but feel let down as in many cases it falls far short of meeting needs. The timing of this propaganda, making a joke or if education rubs salt into that wound when families crying out for decent provision feel they're not being taken seriously.

In Amandaland the school head teacher tears her a new one for completely undermining his efforts to get the message across that SM influencer and 'being a slob' is not a sensible career choice. Now we have the Minister for Education undermining him as well.

"Quiet bat people...?"

I’m sorry I’ve only watched the Richard III section, not any more. Why so many comments specifically on SEN parenting? What’s the link?

That aside, NO ONE should ever have signed off on this. Even if they did it and then said ‘nah, not quite right’. It’s horrific.

I think it may be aimed at who the government believes the average vocational learner is. I’ve just thought about it a bit and it clicked with me. They think people who do apprenticeships are working class and thick like GC so will relate.

So is gemma now representing the average sen child???

They made a choice to put Gemma in an outfit that's reminiscent of a school uniform - tie, waist coat that is much too tight, a shirt that is probably very expensive but gives the impression of holes at the shoulders. They went for a scruffy visual caricature off a schoolgirl. Why?.

The comments about her maths grade. What do we take from that? That it doesn't matter if you fail your exams you can still make a success of yourself by becoming a celebrity?

The 'joke' about pi/sky. That it's fine for someone Gemma's age to continue to show no curiosity? Academic learning stops at 16?

Who is it aimed at and what is the message they were trying to get across?

Could a FOI be put in to request the minutes and all written notes from attendees at this meeting that decided this would get the go ahead? Plus the original oroposal?

It is so totally batshit it is has to be by design.

You can't actually imagine who is sitting round the table and coming up with an idea like this. I mean if this is their final polished product, fuck knows what the rejected ideas were like. It is embarrassing for them and a kick in the teeth for anyone with a SEN child trying to get bloody support. Idiots.

Is this an actual stereotype of SEN parents? I have a child with SEN but wouldn’t consider myself to be a chav, I have a PhD if that counts. The other SEN parents I’ve met haven’t been ‘chavs’ either, perfectly regular respectable people. How can being a chav and having a child with SEN even be linked?

Also did they discuss SEN? All I saw was Gemma Collins spouting off about her bizarre love of Richard III.

I can't think of any logic that makes more sense than this.