@ Luddite - pass me the sick bucket.

I didn't pretend to know how you vote, Rosie. But it's clear that you think she was wrong to appear at the tory conference. Why?

State education in this country is dire. It churns out poorly educated kids, a lot of whom will go to crap universities and get crap degrees, and then resent the fact that they don't have a passport to a good career.
How is she endorsing a system that well benefit privileged children? The present system benefits them more than any free school-if your parents are well off, you can go to a private school, or use a tutor: and the potential competition you'll have from poorer kids is hamstrung from the word go.
Don't tell me what I know-and try not to be so shrill. It's very tiresome.

Chris,
Your first point is ad hominem bullshit.
Your second point? State education here IS dire. Compare the levels of attainment of school leavers here with, say, those in Germany or Finland.
Your third point is nonsense. Did I say anyone who doesn't go to a Russell group uni is a failure? No-I didn't. But maybe we could just give everyone a degree-after all, that's what really matters according to you.
Stick to the issues? After you, Chris.

Mrs Nobody throws in the troll towel once again. You have to debate Nobody otherwise people will think you just spit the dummy all the time.

Remember the panic in Eisenhower's America. The hyper-velocity introduction of new math, science and engineering.[ And imported intellectual property - immigrants ] No more 'egg-head' jokes. Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin - yep!
We remember "Blue Streak' and the UK Space Programme. Those public schools and copy-cat grammars did a great job. John Profumo et al.
Now its the Chinese! A right royal shambles - now and then.
Dunce

It was good of this writer to let Ms Birbalsingh speak without immediately making a judgement about her, but all anti-Tory sentiment aside, her analysis still seems flawed. This is because by claiming that even good state schools merely exacerbate inner-city failure, she denies herself the scope for the state system to reform itself or draw on good examples of school leadership and practice, in favour of the bogus revolution of free schools. This may be music to the ears of Telegraph readers who have convinced themselves that private education is obligatory, but those of us who had the misfortune not to grow up in inner London find the argument that our (sometimes) good state school experiences are invalid a bit unpersuasive. Perhaps she would be better off to assert that the problem as she sees it is really the working class culture of inner city London, and that the remedy is therefore really a form of emergency social engineering to rescue the youth of these areas from themselves. Whether true or not, that language would be unpalatable to the Tory grassroots, who instead pretend that entrepreneurial free schools alone will solve problems. Hence the current stand-off where any good examples of state education are shot down as irrelevant, and the awkward admission, nicely drawn out by Mr McLaughlin, that parental choice might not even lead to the school ethos she assumes to be essential. To be honest, I think her intentions are honourable, but the tone she has adopted in her writing has been too excitable and partisan (a right wing Political Correctness in fact) to be persuasive.

Well, I am as left-wing as they come, I've taught plenty of students, and I think Birbalsingh has a point. I don't buy into the more obsessively authoritarian aspects of her agenda, but it is clear that state schools have problems, and that some of those problems stem from lack of discipline. I would add that another problem is the worship of creativity, and the assumption that you can be "creative" without a base of knowledge. This simply isn't true. We need more rigour, better trained teachers, better curricula, and a stricter standard of discipline in schools. Until we see real reform in this direction, parents, students and teachers will all be betrayed by the system as it stands.

OhFFS is right and so, in some respects, is Birbalsingh. I well remember my state school music education as being told to grab a keyboard and just make something up - every week, with just the theme changing. Consequently, what little I know of music theory was self-taught afterwards...

I'm now a senior lecturer in a leading new university, and have been lecturing for eight years now. The consistent narrative of changes in student ability, however, has been downward. I have students with B grades at A-level who cannot construct coherent sentences and make basic mistakes in grammar and punctuation. This is not window dressing; it often means that it's difficult to understand what they're saying. And I suspect the culprit is the 'creativity before knowledge' attitude, whereby grammar is uncool and overly disciplinarian. Yes, we should have creative exercises in school. But we should also have a knowledge base on which to build that creativity. Like OhFFS, I'm also on the left (Zizek rules!), but I don't see why that means we can forget educational standards.

A final anecdote. On the train between York and London last August, I overheard a group of English teachers talking about Shakespeare. It soon became clear that they didn't really understand the material they were meant to be teaching. One of them mentioned academic literary criticism as a means of getting to grips with the texts; the other responded with (and this is absolutely true) "Oh, you're not meant to actually read that." I was depressed.

I strongly believe that maintaining the status quo is much worst than doing things wrong. Isn't that what we should be teaching children? Make mistakes and learn from them...

I think that some of the comments providing data from the OECD proves that things have been done the wrong way during the past few years.

I would add that learning from those mistakes and moving on is what we should be doing.

Free Schools are an opportunity to improve education the way start-ups have benefited other sectors by being small, flexible, creative and innovative. As the DfE is there to ensure that only the projects with the best potential will go through, Free Schools are a safe way to provide new ways of ensuring the success of all learners, regardless of their cultural, social or economic background.

Other, bigger, established schools will then be able to pick up on those outstanding practices that will have been developed and working, and adapt them for the good of their own learners.

That's what I believe at least and that's why I am working on the setting up of a Free School as well.

Whatevs, thanks for a positive response. I live in Scotland-we've got a different education system here: unfortunately, our schools are-in the main-controlled by the most conservative politicians in the world: i.e., West of Scotland Labour. Anything radical that looks as though it might encourage excellence is anathema to most of those people.

Excellent and enlightening interview from Liam.
The problem is that children who want to learn are in a room, for five years, with children who DO NOT want to learn and who stop all learning and teaching.
The answer is to remove these children and steer them towards some sort of employment where there is no option to leave.
Some of the disruptive children would prefer that. Others would find that standing up for eight hours a day in a factory is worse than school and the request to return would be considered.
Meanwhile, those left, who WANT to learn, would actually get an education.
At the moment, teachers are blamed for "not being able to control" the disruptive children and this is ridiculous.
The option to work idea, IS THE ANSWER but sadly, it won't ever happen. The silent, well-behaved children who want to learn, will continue to loose their education... and who is the blame.? Sadly, the Left wing Educational Idealists, grammar school educated every one.

Personally I think children do love learning and they will seek out and find naturally the best teachers in life - who may or not have any kind of contract. Let's face it -some of these teachers we meet in state schools seem to think they deserve respect just because as public service workers; "we're worth it". But does anybody know how to bring any of these teachers to account when its obvious things are going wrong and risks are being taken that might spoil all our work/life balance? I don't believe it's right or even possible to force children and their families to show respect to any kind of worker who in some overvalued, overblown executive dream-bubble has managed to seemingly avoid real, direct responsibility and accountability for their practice - What can parents or anyone else do when we're seriously concerned about the formal and informal behaviour of teachers- how can the concerns one may raise be treated seriously by any worker who seems to think and indeed behaves as if their whole raison d'etre is to treat any who might not fit into their prepared boxes and classifications as either mad,bad or completely non existent.

Does being respectful mean one must necessarily identify with the kinds of oppression that seem formally designed to take liberties and spoil all our freedom?

..And now we're supposed to be grateful for the chance to get into debt for the rest of our lives for the joy of obtaining an education..

Interesting interview. Whatever the criticisms levelled at her ideas, it's clear that Katherine Birbalsingh is speaking from experience and deserves to be heard.

God preserve us from the Birbalsinghs of this world. I am sick of people like her jumping on bandwagons to make a names for themselves and using our children for their own ends. "Well done you succeeded now please slip into obscurity and leave the real kids to the real teachers who really do have their welfare at heart". Anyone who could share a platform with Michael Gove and endorse the abject lunacy that the Tories are trying to inflict in our state schools deserves all they get. Hope she enjoyed her 15 minutes, at least she got publicity for her book, which is more than the kids who she is helping to harm will get in the future under Tory deceptions and cuts.

FFS enough of side show bob already!!!

Have Katherine Birbalsingh and Sideshow Bob ever been in the same classroom together? We need to know.

I went to local primary school through WW2, and we were all poor then. [one grandfather a docker, the other a farm labourer]. But I thought most of school was fun, after all you learned to read, and do basic maths.
I personally was a maverick, that fully understood the working of a 4 stroke motorcycle engine when I was 10, [used to read fathers Autocar every week],and could make gunpowder whilst still at primary school!
Got a very ancient bike aged 8 and went miles on it, often on my own, no one ever bothered me. But it gave me huge confidence at school, and it is the 'never afraid to ask' that so many modern pupils lack.
Without any coaching made grammar school at age 10 yrs 4 months. And only academic prize was winning the school general knowledge prize at age 15, [others were 18]. But then with no TV read huge quantities of library books[all free]. Made Russell University as mature student aged 34. But as a farm lad work came easily, it's determination you need.