ENGINES OF PRIVILEGE: BRITAIN'S PRIVATE SCHOOLS PROBLEM - A DISCUSSION

From Kensal and Kilburn Better 2019

Is private education a key source of our country's problems?

Social historian David Kynaston, co-author of Engines of Privilege: Britain's private school problem, will set out the argument made in his book, followed by responses to the book by Patrick Derham, Headmaster of Westminster School and Melissa Benn, author of Life Lessons: the case for a National Education Service, and then discussion. 

 The event will be chaired by Judith Enright, Headteacher of Queens Park Community School.

The debate will not be about whether individuals should or should not send their children to private schools; it will be about the effect of the private school system on wider society.  

Therefore we warmly welcome parents and students from both state and private schools, as well as everybody else who has ever attended school and wants a well-informed discussion on our education system and our society. 

A Kensal & Kilburn Better 2019 event put on in association with Queens Park Book Festival

Monday, 10 June 2019 from 19:00 to 20:30 (BST)

Queens Park Community School
Aylestone Avenue
NW6 7BQ London

REGISTER FOR EVENT ON THIS LINK

Katharine Birbalsingh menaces parents as well as pupils

I have already reported on Katharine Birbalsingh's letter to parents and the infamous black and white shoe lace sermon LINK which made some of them refuse the offer of a place at Michaela Free School.

She is at it again this week in a interview with the Kilburn Times LINK. She puts forward her ideas about education which appear to rest on a model of private education which is pre-Dr Arnold LINK and certainly treats pupils as empty vessels to be filled by their superiors.

“Our ethos is very much about teaching children. We do not believe in teachers being facilitators of learning and that’s too often the case.

“We believe in desks being in rows, children looking to the front at their teachers.

“We believe the teacher is a fountain of knowledge who should impart it onto the children.”

In fact the BKT quotes her as wanting to 'install' values in pupils which makes them sound like machines and not people at all.

The school will offer daily behaviour logs on pupils which they will expect parents to check on a regular basis:

“The idea is that if the child has been listening in class, they will get a perfect score, There isn’t just homework for the children but homework for parents too. If they don’t complete their homework, they’ll be hearing from me.”

It looks as if Birbalsingh's missionary zeal and her Thatcher/Gove conviction that she knows best will be targeted at parents as much as pupils.

Watch this space.