Britain's strictest headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh speaks at Preston event extolling 'no mobiles, silent corridors' vision to headteachers

Katharine Birbalsingh CBE visited Preston on Friday (March 17), and held a talk for 55 headteachers from across Lancashire, giving advice on how to improve their schools.

Who is Britain’s strictest headteacher?

Katharine Birbalsingh CBE is an education reformer and headteacher of Michaela School in London. She is known for her conservative views, often talking about her frustration with declining moral standards and low academic achievement. Examples of her ideas include standing up when the teacher comes into the room, smartphone bans and silence in the corridors.

Katharine started her teaching career in a regular inner-city school and ran an anonymous blog during this time, but she rose to pominence in 2010, when she spoke at the Conservative Party Conference and told her audience “The (education) system is broken because it keeps poor children poor.” The fallout from her speech left her without a job, and she says she received hate mail and racist abuse.

Katharine set up her own free school in 2014, named Michaela, which reportedly has 600 visitors each year. Michaela School has a notorious “no excuses” behaviour policy, been described as “outstanding” in all areas by Ofsted, and has achieved above average results.

A published author and former chair of the Social Mobility Commission, Katharine was recently the star of an ITV documentary called ‘Britain’s Strictest Headmistress’ in which she outlined 12 golden rules for educating children, which included not giving them unsupervised access to the internet, and preventing them from listening to grime or drill.

What has Katharine said about her Preston visit?

On her Twitter account, which has over 125k followers, Katharine tweeted: “In Preston yesterday, talking to 55 heads, one of them said, ‘But what about those of us who can’t be a dragon, who can’t be like you? What’s your advice for us?’ You can find allies and have a close team around you, but his point was a v good one. I was stumped

“The public don’t understand that their demands make it v difficult for a school to run successfully. Those heads who manage it, have to fight against society’s expectations. And most ppl don’t want to spend their days fighting. Heads are just normal people.

“The public rightly cry out when they see sexually inappropriate lessons but don’t get that this didn’t happen in a vacuum. Decades of dying societal moral norms and erosion of adult authority brought us here. We blame the schools but what we demand of heads is unreasonable.

“My heart goes out to all the heads out there trying to make a difference, keeping an open mind, and taking on that fight everyday. It is exhausting. I take my hat off to all of you. KEEP GOING. Do what you can. It is all anyone can ask.”

What did the headteachers think?

The Post approached all Preston secondary schools for comment, with three replying. Christ the King, Ashton, Archbishop Temple replied to say they had NOT attended the event.