One of the many things about Katharine Birbalsingh which doesn't just make her a bad teacher, but makes her an actual danger to children, is that she writes kids off from the start, based on who their parents are, or their uniqueness and abilities etc. 1/ 
I have known teachers like her when I was growing up. They are ableist, dismissive and harmful. They break kids. They leave serious mental scars and they destroy lives. They shouldn't be allowed within a 100 miles of a classroom. 2/
They are the teachers who tell a child that they won't amount to anything because that child doesn't fit the weird little model that they have created in their own minds. They are the teacher who puts a child off reading because they tell them they are stupid. 3/
I am autistic. I didn't know that when I was at school. I had teachers like this. Teachers who told me that the best I could hope for was nothing. Teachers who told me I could never be academic, because I didn't learn the way they expected. 4/
Teachers who after my mum died dismissed and actually degraded me in front of the whole class, because what could I do with a drunkard father and no mother. I was the example of what you wanted to avoid being like. 5/
I trained as an SEN teacher. I got higher level qualifications in international relations, economics, marketing and law. I got a good job helping people and I built a life I love. Not "because" of those teachers, but despite them. Because those teachers left scars. 6/
Teachers like Birbalsingh should have been banned from schools long ago. Children aren't cannon fodder in some bullshit "war on woke". They need support, not to be denigrated for who they or their parents are. Otherwise how many more kids will be damaged by teachers like this? 7/
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