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To not understand why Katharine Birbalsingh is so controversial

341 replies

TemporaryPosition · 22/02/2025 12:34

Just that. Am I being unreasonable in thinking the results she achieves at her school and start in life her students get which they likely otherwise wouldn't - is something to be celebrated and perhaps we should look to what's going wrong in schools which face the the same socioeconomic challenges but get far poorer results. Surely I'm not being unreasonable to wonder this.

OP posts:
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GrammarTeacher · 25/02/2025 07:35

ExIssues · 24/02/2025 23:07

Ok so it doesn't limit any choices then. GCSE choices generally don't - as long as the core subjects are followed. Why do people make stuff up.

They’re not. It does limit choices though as statistically it leads to lower achievement at the next stage.
We have an intense support programme for scientists who join with dual award to catch up (seems more of an issue with Physics and Chemistry) I would hope Michaela would do the same.

ByGraceAlone · 25/02/2025 08:16

GrammarTeacher · 25/02/2025 07:30

He is NOT respected by the psychology community. He’s the psych equivalent of Andrew Wakefield. A dangerous misogynist and supporter of Andrew Tate.

If you believe this you are a fool because it's 100% bullshit.

I haven't got time today to devote to explaining why irrational baseless slurs are total nonsense. Anyone interested in JBP please make up your own minds and go and listen to him.

You'll spend hours wondering where the misogyny is. Then you'll eventually realise there isn't any and probably think: this has been really helpful and insightful.

And you'll then be able to spot and ignore pathetic hysterical unevidenced slurs which get thrown about to shut down things some groups don't like.

The fact these people are teachers supposedly teaching critical thinking is absurd and concerning.

ByGraceAlone · 25/02/2025 08:29

Oh and I am a psychologist.

It's true he was disciplined by the Canadian psychology society for some cutting tweets he wrote about the trans stuff. But he's refusing to go on their reeducation course and now they don't know what to do.

He was a highly esteemed academic professor taught ar Harvard and other top universities before spoke out against compelled speech laws. Students loved his lectures which are all online. He ran labs conducted research and and published widely.

The psychology profession itself has become corrupted by the trans ideology and is harming children. So if you support all that is being done to children with that ideology yes you'll hate JBP.

But many many psychologists support him and are trying to resist the ideology that has gripped the profession.

So yes there is controversy. Because there are different sides of an important issue.
But the the "supports Andrew Tate' bullshit isn't worthy of the playground Never mind teachers.

It's contemptible.

GrammarTeacher · 25/02/2025 08:31

Please don’t attack me personally. It is not a slur. The fact that there are so many Jordan Peterson defenders on here is the really shocking thing.
I am more than capable in my role and in teaching my students to think for themselves. Unlike Michaela’s curriculum, I encourage them to debate with me. As a result I have students who have gone on to work for all major political parties, civil service, teaching, some have even become investment bankers.
Teaching is NOT indoctrination. I’m not trying to create a class full of mini mes. That would be dull.

GrammarTeacher · 25/02/2025 08:32

ByGraceAlone · 25/02/2025 08:29

Oh and I am a psychologist.

It's true he was disciplined by the Canadian psychology society for some cutting tweets he wrote about the trans stuff. But he's refusing to go on their reeducation course and now they don't know what to do.

He was a highly esteemed academic professor taught ar Harvard and other top universities before spoke out against compelled speech laws. Students loved his lectures which are all online. He ran labs conducted research and and published widely.

The psychology profession itself has become corrupted by the trans ideology and is harming children. So if you support all that is being done to children with that ideology yes you'll hate JBP.

But many many psychologists support him and are trying to resist the ideology that has gripped the profession.

So yes there is controversy. Because there are different sides of an important issue.
But the the "supports Andrew Tate' bullshit isn't worthy of the playground Never mind teachers.

It's contemptible.

Except they have supported each other frequently.

ByGraceAlone · 25/02/2025 08:38

Bullshit.
Total 100% stupid nonsensical ignorant Bullshit.

ByGraceAlone · 25/02/2025 08:39

Please anyone do your own research.

zaxxon · 25/02/2025 09:20

All right then. People were asking what's so bad about Jordan Peterson, so I went and found this q&a with him that Time magazine did in 2018. In his own words ...

So what do you think of the #MeToo Movement? I think that the treatment of women at the hands of some men is reprehensible. That’s what a small percentage of very dangerous men are like. That should be stopped. But then you have a believe-the-victim strategy, which is associated with dangers like violation of the presumption of innocence. It’s more deeply reflective of a bigger problem in society, which is that the birth-control pill has enabled women to compete with men on a fairly equal footing. But we still don’t know what the rules are that should govern the behavior, the interaction between men and women in places like the workplace.

Does the huge number of women who report some kind of sexual assault or harassment suggest that it’s more than just a couple of bad actors? That it is a systemic problem? Well it depends on how you define sexual assault or sexual harassment. The question is: Where do you place the boundaries for defining that phenomena? And if it’s — let’s call it unwanted penetrative sex, then no, I think it’s a very small minority of men who are doing most of the damage.

What if it’s unwanted sexual attention by a senior employee that then leads to your marginalization at work? Well, again, I think that the men who engage in that sort of thing on a regular basis are a very small minority. The depth of the measurement problem is a big problem. It’s like defining hate speech. Is there hateful speech? Well, obviously. Who’s going to define the parameters of hate? Oh, well, we can solve that later. Well no, we can’t. That’s the problem.

You say women won’t marry men who earn less than they do. But already 29% of women earn more than their husbands. Is this a cultural thing that might change? Well, in my more cynical moments I think it’ll change entirely. There’s lots of cultures in the world where women do all the work. It’s not necessarily that easy to entice men into responsible work. We tend to think of that as a norm in the West. It’s a norm that’s been established through a hell of a lot of effort.

Would you suggest that trying to give more voice to minorities and to women who feel that they have been systemically held back… First I don’t think there is any evidence at all that women are being systemically held back. Not in the West. I think we’re past that by about a decade.

Except that we have many more women than men graduating from every level of university and yet they rarely get to the C-suite, or the boards. What is going on there? I know exactly what’s going on there. If you want to occupy the C-suite, or the top one-tenth of 1% in any organization, you have to be obsessively devoted to your career at the expense of everything else. And women look at that and they think, No. So you actually have to reverse the question. The question isn’t, Why aren’t more women in the C-suite? The question is, Why are there any men? Because it’s the men who are willing to be obsessive about their careers and work 80 hours a week like nonstop and hyper-efficiently. The hyper-productivity of a minority characterizes every domain where there’s creative production. And almost all of the hyper-productive people are men.

Source: https://time.com/5175974/jordan-peterson-12-rules-book-interview/

cardibach · 25/02/2025 09:29

ByGraceAlone · 24/02/2025 20:17

Engage through relationships is a terrible way to teach secondary school subjects.

It's one of the biggest cons in education currently.

The relationship in the classroom is teacher pupil following the explicit rules and expectations for both.

What they do at Michaela which I think is brilliant for relationships is family style eating teachers and pupils every day. That's when you engage through relationships.

Also materials shouldn't need adapting for every class if a clear scheme of work is being followed this should be built in.

No, it’s not terrible. You can’t work with people unless you have a relationship wit( them - they trust you to care about their oerfr9mance, to be someone they can rely on. It’s not the way you teach. It’s the way you get in a position to be able to teach. And it doesn’t in any way preclude strict discipline. 35 years of experience speaking here.

cooljerk · 25/02/2025 09:32

@AquaPeer

The results of their Year 6 pupils reveals excellent attainment in all three SATs papers which does not compare or correlate at all with a 'normal' intake at a local authority school.

I quoted the relevant FoI request a while back.

cardibach · 25/02/2025 09:34

GrammarTeacher · 25/02/2025 07:32

That would be a terrible way to teach my subject English. And we get results which are contextually excellent (as well as just generally).

I’m an English teacher too. In my last reply to @ByGraceAlone i missed that ridiculous last sentence.
Also materials shouldn't need adapting for every class if a clear scheme of work is being followed this should be built in. This reveals a total ignorance of teaching and learning. Different classes start at different points even if they are following a clear scheme. And if they all happen to have grasped everything that went before (no l9ng term absence for illness, no suspensions etc) different pupils have different levels of intelligence/ability in the subject. They need it broken down and presented in different ways. This is so obvious it shouldn’t need pointing out even to a non-teacher, but here we are…

AquaPeer · 25/02/2025 10:09

cooljerk · 25/02/2025 09:32

@AquaPeer

The results of their Year 6 pupils reveals excellent attainment in all three SATs papers which does not compare or correlate at all with a 'normal' intake at a local authority school.

I quoted the relevant FoI request a while back.

It’s the intake they get though. Without selecting.

poetryandwine · 25/02/2025 10:13

ByGraceAlone · 25/02/2025 08:29

Oh and I am a psychologist.

It's true he was disciplined by the Canadian psychology society for some cutting tweets he wrote about the trans stuff. But he's refusing to go on their reeducation course and now they don't know what to do.

He was a highly esteemed academic professor taught ar Harvard and other top universities before spoke out against compelled speech laws. Students loved his lectures which are all online. He ran labs conducted research and and published widely.

The psychology profession itself has become corrupted by the trans ideology and is harming children. So if you support all that is being done to children with that ideology yes you'll hate JBP.

But many many psychologists support him and are trying to resist the ideology that has gripped the profession.

So yes there is controversy. Because there are different sides of an important issue.
But the the "supports Andrew Tate' bullshit isn't worthy of the playground Never mind teachers.

It's contemptible.

But they did know what to do. They went to court, and won. JP appealed all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court, where he lost again. Of course he is free to surrender his licence to practise psychology instead of going on the training course.

JP also launched a lawsuit for CAD1.5M against Wilfrid Laurier University for making critical remarks within the scope of academic discourse. He dragged it out for over 5 years, then dropped it (this is widely searchable). He threatened to sue Justin Trudeau for critical remarks but hasn’t done so yet.

Seems the man can dish it out, but he can’t take it. Hypocrites are not good role models.

roses2 · 25/02/2025 10:20

Where are people getting the data from that the average number of GCSEs sat is 7?

Based on the data on this website there looks to be 9 on average per child excluding the home spoken languages (science is worth 2 GCSEs):

Michaela Community School - Crystal Roof

Based on the demographic of the parents and kids, the core subjects of maths, science and english will do them just fine as most of these kids are likely to go into science/engineering/finance careers based on parent pressure.

Compulsory GCSEs:

poetryandwine · 25/02/2025 10:27

ByGraceAlone · 25/02/2025 08:29

Oh and I am a psychologist.

It's true he was disciplined by the Canadian psychology society for some cutting tweets he wrote about the trans stuff. But he's refusing to go on their reeducation course and now they don't know what to do.

He was a highly esteemed academic professor taught ar Harvard and other top universities before spoke out against compelled speech laws. Students loved his lectures which are all online. He ran labs conducted research and and published widely.

The psychology profession itself has become corrupted by the trans ideology and is harming children. So if you support all that is being done to children with that ideology yes you'll hate JBP.

But many many psychologists support him and are trying to resist the ideology that has gripped the profession.

So yes there is controversy. Because there are different sides of an important issue.
But the the "supports Andrew Tate' bullshit isn't worthy of the playground Never mind teachers.

It's contemptible.

In fact, the legal complaint says the problem is comments by Peterson that are

’transphobic, sexist and racist’,

so just citing ‘some cutting tweets he wrote about the trans stuff’ was being rather economical with the truth.

loonyloo · 25/02/2025 10:28

IdaGlossop · 22/02/2025 18:34

It has been replicated, successfully, at Mercia in Sheffield, in a very different catchment. Ofsted graded it Outstanding on its first inspection. Telling.

Isn't that area of Sheffield quite affluent?

poetryandwine · 25/02/2025 10:33

loonyloo · 25/02/2025 10:28

Isn't that area of Sheffield quite affluent?

Yes

urbanbuddha · 25/02/2025 11:32

@roses2

Where are you getting 9 GCSEs per pupil?
I can’t see it.
I think the concern is that pupils at the school require level 7 for entry to sixth form.

My concern would be that the sixth form is so small (only 66 students in year 12 and 52 in year 13) with similarly restricted subject choice, and that numbers in year 13 are more than 20% fewer than year 12.

For comparison Camden School for Girls admits a similar number to Michaela in year 7, has slightly more pupils on free school meals, but admits far more students to Sixth Form.
It requires level 6 at GCSE and is heavily oversubscribed. It offers a much more varied curriculum and excels in music.
Also worth noting perhaps - it’s a non-uniform school all the way through so isn’t wasting a lot of time faffing about on uniforms.

IdaGlossop · 25/02/2025 15:11

loonyloo · 25/02/2025 10:28

Isn't that area of Sheffield quite affluent?

Mercia itself is in an affluent part of the city (Carterknowle) but the catchment for the school is larger than the catchments for other schools in the city, covering the affluent south west but also the north west, which is not affluent. The least affluent parts of the city are mostly to the east.

Hollyhedge · 25/02/2025 17:31

roses2 · 25/02/2025 10:20

Where are people getting the data from that the average number of GCSEs sat is 7?

Based on the data on this website there looks to be 9 on average per child excluding the home spoken languages (science is worth 2 GCSEs):

Michaela Community School - Crystal Roof

Based on the demographic of the parents and kids, the core subjects of maths, science and english will do them just fine as most of these kids are likely to go into science/engineering/finance careers based on parent pressure.

Compulsory GCSEs:

Edited

It’s all here

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/140862/michaela-community-school/secondary

roses2 · 25/02/2025 17:45

I see 8 on that list: 7 compulsory (Science is worth 2) + 1 appears to be optional based on the number of entries (geography/history/art).

Greywhippet · 25/02/2025 18:20

Birbalsingh is controversial because she wants to be. She is deliberately provocative and very good at straw man arguments. She has fully weaponised platforms like twitter.
There are some great merits in her educational ideas and some significant problems with them. Reasonable people can see that, dogmatic people can’t.
i think it’s best not to give her much attention

Hollyhedge · 25/02/2025 21:34

roses2 · 25/02/2025 17:45

I see 8 on that list: 7 compulsory (Science is worth 2) + 1 appears to be optional based on the number of entries (geography/history/art).

Edited

It clearly says 7.

To not understand why Katharine Birbalsingh is so controversial
roses2 · 26/02/2025 08:55

Hollyhedge · 25/02/2025 21:34

It clearly says 7.

I see it says 7 but if you add up the individual GCSEs it comes to 8 per child:

116 kids sits 7 core GCSEs (double science) then there are 116 kids that sit either history/geography/art

Universities now look at your top eight subjects
Given 82% of Michaela kids go to Oxbridge/Russell Group then this is not correct information.

To not understand why Katharine Birbalsingh is so controversial
Hollyhedge · 26/02/2025 09:23

roses2 · 26/02/2025 08:55

I see it says 7 but if you add up the individual GCSEs it comes to 8 per child:

116 kids sits 7 core GCSEs (double science) then there are 116 kids that sit either history/geography/art

Universities now look at your top eight subjects
Given 82% of Michaela kids go to Oxbridge/Russell Group then this is not correct information.

Edited

I see what you mean. Weird.