To really dislike Bridget Phillipson?

[Sensiblyplease]

I just absolutely can’t stand the woman.

The lady seems to be making decisions based on personal prejudices and causing intentional division in our education system.
She’s not listening to anyone, and the consequences her decisions are having is far too impactful to ignore. As someone in her power she should model balanced politics, based on evidence, instead of in-sighting hate and division.

My children are in state school- we’ve had 3
more children come into their year group with SEN but no EHCPs as their previous independent schools could cope without one. The parents inform me it’ll take a few years and that’s if they get one- and then they can either go back to their previous independent school (as apparently they won’t have to pay VAT with an ECHP?) or have the help they need according to the results of the ECHP.

Im just so angry. I have nothing against these children and can understand they can’t afford the VAT increase and needed to move back into state schools, but it’s now really disrupted the class. The TA is apparently out the class all the time now and the class teacher has 32 children on her own. It appears that Bridget’s insistence and personal hate against the private sector is damaging to state school children. It’s really pissing me off - our children’s education is important and not to be messed around with.

I feel like the woman likes a good headline but is prepared to throw our children’s education away in order to meet her personal objectives / vendettas.

What is she actually doing for state schools? Her headline grabbing titles is deflecting from her actually trying to improve state education in any meaningful and impactful way. 6500 teachers - so my kids get 1/3 of a teacher for their school? That’s shocking. More children entering the state system now puts pressure on their school, and their teachers. What is she actually doing to address this. Where is she magic-ing these trained and qualified teachers from? What is she doing to retain teachers and help with their current work load?

I’m fed up with her agenda effecting normal people. We need someone with a level head to sort schools out. End of rant!

OP, they can't because of their 'fiscal rules'. They're really going to struggle to raise any real cash to improve public services because they've ruled out increases on taxes which account for 75% of the tax take and their rules on borrowing constrain them further.

They said this to win the election and appear financially responsible. But in reality they are going to raise very little from a range of heavily punitive taxes which will probably not help with their economy growth agenda.

I have been quite pleased with the changes to Ofsted and the pay rise, to be honest.

Something massive needs to be done to decrease workload though or we won’t have any teachers left in our schools.

Where I live there are six primary schools up for closure currently. We are hoping the local private schools will lose students because every extra student we gain is £4500 per pupil per year into our state schools and bigger numbers keep them viable. Small classes are lovely for kids but not financially sustainable for schools.

We also have the issue of good rated maintained schools being closed whilst badly performing academies stay open because the council doesn’t have legal powers to close them, so has to close the good schools instead. The new Labour bill will tackle this by allowing local authorities to include ALL schools in place planning. I think that’s a good thing.

I am glad OP you want to focus on practical changes and not go over the VAT issue as so many have done.

Workload is something that needs to be tackled. The other which is probably insoluble are unreasonable parents, especially those who will not accept their child may do something wrong or unpleasant on occasions.

If schools near you are overcrowded you need to write to your local authority who hold the statutory duty for place planning.

Not everything is the responsibility of central government.

So... you are upset that schools don't hold empty places in every class in case looked after children need places? Or are you upset that looked after children are an excepted category over PAN?

Either way this is not a good look. And 3 LAC children joining a year at a single point in time is unheard of. Also, 3 additional children over 3 classes is not 33 in each class.

I have no skin in the private game, but find the sole focus of “mental health” and associated support for state schools to be depressing. It damns all state-school pupils as miserable losers.

What are schools for? Excuse my ignorance, but I assumed it was to educate our children. As a parent (and I assume this is true for most) I want good teaching and high standards.

I worked in (officially!) one of the worst schools in England. If I were Education Minister, I’d be asking why there are pupils reaching 16 who can barely read or do simple Maths. I’d be wanting to know why Music lessons were so dumbed down, Geography teaches nothing and History even less.

I rather think that Bridget Phollipson is one of those equality of outcome people rather than equality of opportunity. The only way to achieve the former is to cut everyone down to size.

Of course she's an equality of opportunity person. That's all Labour ever talk about in relation to this policy. They can't bear the idea of privatised anything. That's why they're willing to dumb down the entire sector rather than work from the ground up. It's typical Labour thinking.

Ideological? This labour lot? I wish!

I have no skin in the private game, but find the sole focus of “mental health” and associated support for state schools to be depressing. It damns all state-school pupils as miserable losers.

There's a massive mental health crisis among children and young people, and CAMHs has basically collapsed. So schools are having to deal with the fallout, and instead of trained professionals, teens are being supported by a teacher who has sat through a PowerPoint. It's not ideal.

Really good point. Think the halfy half trust/LA system Labour have inherited is storing up some future problems. I’m not sure trusts passing failing schools onto another trust every couple of years is a good solution. I have only ever worked in mainstream MATs and they were basically fine but they don’t magic away the long term causes of poor performance in school etc.

Now I've read the offending Tweet I would say definitely ideological, yes. What else would motivate such tone deaf comments?

She also believes that some women have a penis. She is a dolt and I would be surprised if she can read.

Good point well made. It feels like children are always the guinea pigs in each parties’ political idealogy.
Never mind if it doesn’t work; there’ll be a new generation to experiment with in a few years 😕.

What motivated the comments was the article that it was quoting.

"She told i that “frills” would be the first to be cut, such as costly catering contracts, personalised stationery and annual events.
“A lot of independent schools have lovely things like ring binders with school logos embossed on them,” Ms Sanderson said. “That will go."

and "He said schools were “not compromising” on building maintenance and upkeep but added: “it’s the nice-to-haves – the new swimming pool, the new AstroTurf pitch – that they might just put on hold.”

I think anyone working in state schools would read that article and consider the article to be tone deaf.

At least private schools won't be compromising on things like building maintenance and whether the heating can go on, that sort of thing would be awful

@noblegiraffe I work in a state school. The article is just a matter-of-fact assessment of what the VAT change will initially mean, isn't it? The luxuries will be trimmed back. It's not like they had the head of Eton standing there doing angry compoface asking everyone to be up in arms on their behalf.

OTOH Philipson clearly finds the idea of anyone having nice things a bit offensive.

Still not convinced the policy will be a net positive anyway but that's beside the point, which is that yes she clearly is 'ideological'. Which for some people will be seen as a good thing. I tend to find it off-putting.

If she was simply talking about investing in state education that would be different, but the tone is very much moralising against those awful private school types.

I work in a state school. The article is just a matter-of-fact assessment of what the VAT change will initially mean, isn't it?

You surely cannot work in a state school without rolling your eyes at the revelation that private schools might have to cut back on branded ring binders. Like, so what?

Yes, so what? It doesn't concern me either way.

You do wonder about the continuing quality of the state sector, premised on budget cuts, teacher recruitment and retention, and large scale immigration (not just in numbers but diversity too). Oh, and not forgetting the decline in behavioural standards amongst both children and their parents.

Those who are delighted about the imposition of VAT on PS fees, may want to consider the above.

Due to this thread I looked at Bridget Philippsons posts - absolute gem I’ve just seen complaining that the Conservatives used parliamentary time to debate on the VAT policy . Utterly stupid post on the basis that’s that’s the point of Parliament sitting in a democracy . OP I now completely get your frustration with this particular Minister . Schools are broken but a bit of money from a few parents isn’t going to fix things .

Exactly! I feel she’s almost patronising is state school parents with her posts over this. And cover up for the lack of what she is going to actually do to help. She’s got a personal vendetta against private schools and is willing to mess up both state and private schools children’s education over this. I’m not sure who she’s appealing to - as her behaviour is showing (to me to be a bit of a loon and unmeasured in her actions) that today is independent schools and tomorrow it’ll be something else she targets that effects our children. I think she’s a bit of a nasty woman and a loose canon. Kier needs to rein her in and quickly!

This is my point here- she’s deflecting attention these actual issues with her silly playground posts. My children matter too but don’t patronise us Bridget by making our you’re doing this to help my children as it’s
Clear it’s nothing about that.

A politician guided by ideology? Well duh? Of course politicians are guided by ideology, that is why they stand with the party they do and not any others.

This! The policy hasn't been introduced yet, so perhaps they just couldn't afford the fees. How did they know whether the school would pass on the VAT yet? Not every school will. Private school fees have increased massively in the past two decades, they have priced themselves out of reach of many families who could have previously afforded them. A lot of this is on the schools themselves for being too expensive. Also, the state sector has suffered austerity and cuts, why can't the private sector make a few cuts and tighten their belts rather than pass on the costs of VAT.

It’s pretty easy to work out.