Who should decide how our children are taught?
The New Statesman | UK politics and culture
The New Statesman
4.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The freedoms that the UK's academy schools have been granted could be curtailed.
Labour's Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill proposes centralising and standardising decision making across state schools in the UK. The Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, claims this will improve conditions for every student across the country.
Katharine Birbalsingh, who has been called "Britain's strictest headteacher", is highly critical of these developments, calling them cultural Marxism. However, senior educator Leora Cruddas - who leads an organisation representing two thirds of UK academies - has welcomed many of the measures in the bill.
Pippa Bailey is joined by Birbalsingh, Cruddas and the New Statesman's Hannah Barnes to discuss who should decide how and what children are taught.
Ask a question for us to answer in a future episode: www.newstatesman.com/youaskus
Get more politics coverage every day direct to your email inbox by signing up for our daily politics newsletter: morningcall.substack.com
Save money on a New Statesman subscription to get full access to all our reporting and analysis from just £5 for your first 5 weeks: www.newstatesman.com/feb25
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Okay, here's the thing with you theater, artsy, liberal types, you think you know it all. |
| 0:05.9 | But trust me, saving the earth is a filthy business. |
| 0:10.9 | In Kyoto, the acclaimed five-star new play from the Royal Shakespeare Company and Good Chance, |
| 0:16.0 | I'll show you what really happened that night at the UN's groundbreaking climate conference in Japan. |
| 0:22.8 | Kyoto at London's Soho Place for a limited season. |
| 0:27.0 | Book now at Soho Place.org. |
| 0:33.1 | The New Statesman. |
| 0:38.0 | I've only ever worked in the inner city my whole life in London, and I've seen some very poor |
| 0:43.8 | behaviour in my time. Lots of children failed, I'd say, by the system. How and what children are taught |
| 0:50.0 | in school has been a source of controversy for decades. We're in the inner city in Wembley. |
| 0:54.7 | We are very much about strict discipline |
| 0:56.8 | and a kind of old school traditional education |
| 1:00.3 | where the teacher is standing at the front of the class, |
| 1:02.2 | leading the learning and very much the authority in the classroom. |
| 1:05.1 | Catherine Berbel Singh is the head teacher of Michaela Community School |
| 1:08.5 | in Wembley, West London, |
| 1:10.3 | where behaviour policies such as |
| 1:11.8 | silent corridors and attention for forgetting your pen have earned her the moniker Britain's |
| 1:17.0 | strictest head teacher. But Michaela is undoubtedly successful. More than half of its pupils |
| 1:22.1 | achieve a grade seven or above, the equivalent of a former A or higher in five GCSE subjects. |
| 1:28.6 | According to its Progress 8 score, a measure of how students improve between the end of |
| 1:32.9 | primary and secondary school, it is the best school in England. |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in -44 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New Statesman, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The New Statesman and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.