The Education Secretary asked a high-profile school leader to “lower her tone” and “allow her to finish her sentences”, according to government minutes of a meeting between the pair.
Bridget Phillipson met with Katharine Birbalsingh – who has been commonly described as Britain’s strictest headteacher – last week after she criticised the proposed academy reforms in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
Ms Birbalsingh, headteacher of Michaela Community School in Brent in north-west London, wrote an article in the Spectator in January which accused Ms Phillipson of being “blinded by a Marxist ideology”.
She said she was concerned the Education Secretary would “destroy the huge gains made over the last decade”.
Government minutes of a meeting between the pair on February 3, obtained by Schools Week under the freedom of information act, claim Ms Birbalsingh repeatedly interrupted the Education Secretary and asked if she was introducing the Bill because of her own ambitions to lead the Labour Party.
The minutes drawn up by the Department for Education (DfE) said: “The SoS (Phillipson) stated she would need to ask KB (Birbalsingh) to lower her tone, and asked they remove the heat from the discussion.
“The SoS emphasised she would appreciate if KB would allow her to finish her sentences so that she can address KB’s questions and concerns in turn.”
The minutes record that Ms Birbalsingh “noted that as she herself did not understand politics, she should not expect the SoS to understand education because the SoS has not been a headteacher”.
It claims that Ms Birbalsingh said colleagues in Westminster told her to ask if the reason the Education Secretary is introducing the Bill “is because she wants to become the leader of the Labour party”.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson arrives in Downing Street, London, for a Cabinet meeting (James Manning/PA)
In another article for the Spectator just days after the meeting, Ms Birbalsingh accused the Education Secretary of not being “ interested” in schools.
Ms Birbalsingh has contested some of the Government’s minutes of the meeting – including a section where it claimed the headteacher asked Ms Phillipson if she “hates maths”.
The minutes said Ms Phillipson offered for officials to meet Ms Birbalsingh and her team to explain the measures in the Bill and the head “refused this offer” – but Ms Birbalsingh said “that never happened”.
She told the PA news agency: “She didn’t say lowering the tone. What she said was ‘I want to cool this down a bit.’”
Ms Birbalsingh added: “Reading their own minutes it’s obvious that it was a conversation where I asked her lots of questions and I interrupted her twice.
“What’s important, frankly, are her responses or lack of responses.”