Katherine Birbalsingh?

[GreatJehosephat]

She’s been popping up on tiktok for the last few days, and seems to be very divisive.

She appears to get amazing results, but then people point out she’s misrepresenting the truth as to who goes to her school, that they have far fewer children with SN, and can turn away children if they wish.

In rl she seems to be really polarised as well, so I thought I’d ask here and hope to learn more about her system and whether it’s cherry picked (as suggested) or if she has indeed created an amazing experience for her pupils.

My own opinion, based on the clips I’ve seen, is that the very strict rules would mostly be intolerable to any adult in a workplace and when you look at other academies who install strict rules it seems to impact heavily on the pupil’s mental health.
I believe there’s a place for such schools, and they work very well for some children, but I can think of plenty of children who need a different approach in order to produce a happy, productive population (in a way where people are mentally well enough to find employment - and we seem to be seeing a downturn in this and an upturn in young people being too stressed to do anything!).

Yes I agree.
I have a child who thrived in an academy with similar rules (it helped that she was liked by teachers who gave her chances when she slipped up - a common theme sadly for pupils who are less likeable who have no second chances), and two who were really badly harmed by the same approach.

Variety in approaches is good, we have a system that’s mostly one size fits all right now, and apart from some outliers it’s not working.

Parents are often blamed for not arguing against punishments for their dc, and this is a tricky one. I’ve been that parent, but whilst advocating for my autistic son who was being put in unacceptable situations (going against his EHCP and therefore discriminatory) and being punished for being autistic, and this is seen over and over again! My younger son was regularly punished by teachers for having tics, both motor and vocal, despite having a letter from his paed and having made sure all teachers were aware of this - yet barely a week went by when he received another negative point for it. If there are parents who are in denial of their children’s genuine bad behaviour, like bullying, it shouldn’t matter, the school processes should mean that these are dealt with regardless of having parents on board or not. However I suspect that many of “those” parents are SN parents whose children have little option but to be in schools that are harmful to them, and honestly as parents what else are you supposed to do?

Having a variety of different schools with a variety of approaches would address this. At the moment the majority of schools are academies, with academic curriculums and often draconian rules, which do not suit everyone, and probably explains why there are such issues around schooling right now. Thousands of schools refusers, growing number of children needing support, increasingly poor behaviour.

Thousands of children are school refusing. It’s a big enough problem for the government (well, the last government) to have launched a campaign telling people that if their children have a sniffle they should still go to school, a campaign that completely missed the mark as minor illness isn’t the reason behind poor attendance levels, SN is a big reason, but funnily enough they are avoiding addressing that like the plague!

Within many schools it’s been reported that SN numbers are going up (DS’s old school was 10% when he was there, it’s now over 30%). Many of these are children who are simply not coping with the pressures of school. SEND teams within schools very often will admit how difficult things are for the children, and how much schools have changed over the last 20+ years, to the detriment of pupils and teachers alike.

Having read the comments here and looked up more about her, I find KB quite goady, but her school sounds amazing. My dd would have thrived and probably loved it. My ds wouldn’t have coped at all, because he has ASD but it’s pda presenting, and that approach (which he had at high school) all but destroyed him and his family within a couple of months.

I was at school 40 years ago, it doesn’t compare to today. The pressure on children now is huge, to learn, to perform. I had less pressure during GCSEs and A levels than children have from age 10, when they start cramming for SATs. We had uniforms, and inspections to make sure skirts were not too short, but at the same time we didn’t have rules imposed on how to walk down a corridor, where precisely to hold a blazer when not wearing it, having punishments handed out left right and centre when these rules are enforced.

There are lots of schools in the area around Michaela. Surely parents of children who wouldn’t benefit from it wouldn’t include it in their preferences? It’s always oversubscribed, suggesting parents who support the Michaela ethos are keen to send their children there.

I think it’s sad that some children will have to face a raft of bullying, violence and disrupted lessons on a daily basis, when the only schools in their area are failing. That doesn’t seem to be the case in Wembley. Can’t post the link, but most secondary schools in the area are outstanding, or at least good.

Well no, for equal allocation it'd have to be a lottery system like the one Brighton Council tried. Our system is marketised- schools are over and under-subscribed and can influence who applies by their messaging. There was an article in the TES this week about one secondary school telling prospective parents if their schild had SEN they weren't the best place, and they should go to the one down the road (not a specialist school or one with a particular resource base, it was just a way of repelling SEN children!) 'Magnet schools' are a thing. I'd argue schools can also be 'magnet schools' for supportive parents with high academic aspirations.

In fairness, people utterly hated the lottery system in Brighton (I grew up there).

Yes I wasn't saying that it was the right approach, just disagreeing that our current system is 'equal allocation'.

Are you guys going on the March?