Weighing up the evidence

Evidence.

It is something that we teachers encourage our students to find and weigh-up before coming to a conclusion.

In science, if the evidence does not back the theory, the theory is wrong.

Pretty basic stuff, you’d imagine.

But not for our Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson.

She came into office with left-wing education theory, having never worked in a school or as a teacher. She had decided she knew what was best for students, especially the poorest.

You might think she’d seek out an example of a school which took those poorest and most disadvantaged students and led them to exam results that often surpassed those of students at the most expensive private schools in the country.

Not a bit of it.

Phillipson has never visited Michaela Community School in Wembley, whose remarkable headteacher has given her opinion on the Education Secretary.

Katharine Birbalsingh has transformed the lives of countless children with her school’s policies on strict discipline and traditional teaching methods.

Its last Progress 8 score placed it as the best school in the country.

In a recent podcast, Birbalsingh blasted Phillipson and warned that far from helping the hard-up pupils she professed to focus on, the Secretary of State was in fact ‘harming poor children’.

She added: “When you put someone in charge of schools, and especially in charge of the curriculum, when she has no idea what children need – that’s a problem.”

She added that Michael Gove, when Secretary of State, listened to those who knew what they were doing.

He sought evidence and based his decisions on it. And things improved.

It is clear that Phillipson doesn’t have the experience needed and should listen to those who do.

She should be listening to the best headteachers in the country, and that would include Katherine Birbalsingh.

While not everything that is successful at Michaela Community School would work elsewhere, headteachers should be able to do what works best for their own students. Birbalsingh says Phillipson is removing that important freedom.

However, there are some fundamentals that ought to be common to all schools.

We should have a knowledge-rich curriculum, not a gimmick-laden and woke-laden curriculum.

Traditional subjects should not be pushed aside for modern subjects. We are not there to indoctrinate children but to present a range of views that should be based on knowledge and understanding evidence.

Schools should maintain their freedom to teach. Professionals should be trusted and not be dictated to.

Uniform policy should be decided by schools and not mandated nationally as just three branded items, as Phillipson proposes.

We need evidence, not ideology.

ends