End Of Term Report: Bridget Phillipson. Grade: F. Must Do Better Is No Longer Sufficient.
As children across England sit their exams this week, some of them are doing so in schools they did not choose, having been displaced from schools their families stretched to afford, by a policy that promised 6,500 new teachers and cannot confirm a single one was hired. That is Bridget Phillipson's record. Here is the full assessment.
Private school VAT. The government promised the levy would displace around 14,000 pupils into the state sector and fund 6,500 new teachers. The original internal estimate was 3,000 pupils. The actual figure is over 43,000, three times the revised estimate and fourteen times the original one. Over 100 private schools have closed, including schools that explicitly named the VAT policy as the cause of their collapse. Fees have risen on average 14 percent, substantially above Treasury forecasts, hitting middle income families hardest, the people Labour claimed it was protecting. Smaller, more affordable independent schools have been destroyed. The country's most prestigious and expensive institutions have barely noticed.
On the 6,500 new teachers: when asked in Parliament how many had actually been recruited using the VAT revenue, a government minister declined to answer. The question was put directly and left unanswered. The government does not know, or will not say, how many teachers its flagship policy created. What is known is that more teachers have left the profession than joined it in the last recorded period. The state sector is absorbing tens of thousands of additional pupils while the teaching workforce shrinks.
Kemi Badenoch called Phillipson a spiteful class warrior. The evidence supports the description. The policy was not designed around evidence. The government's own estimate was out by a factor of fourteen. It was designed around ideology, the belief that private education is an offence against equality and that taxing it is its own reward regardless of consequences. The consequences landed not on Eton but on families who stretched to afford smaller schools that no longer exist.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that sex under the Equality Act means biological sex. That was one year ago. The Equality and Human Rights Commission drafted its code of practice. Phillipson received it and sat on it. Baroness Falkner, who oversaw the drafting, said publicly that the guidance is ready and that the delay is political. The charge has gone unanswered. The minister holds the title Secretary of State for Women and Equalities while withholding the legal protections the law requires her to implement.
Schools are being nudged toward identity-based decision-making in areas that demand caution, maturity and parental involvement. Teachers are placed in an impossible position, told to affirm identity claims before maturity, before medical certainty, often before parents are informed. The Cass Review explicitly warned against premature affirmation. The guidance ignores that warning. When things go wrong it will not be ministers who face the consequences. It will be teachers.
The Eton-backed free sixth form in Middlesbrough, a free school for deprived pupils in one of England's poorest areas, was cancelled not because it failed but because it threatened to succeed in a way the government could not control.
The curriculum is being diluted. The EBacc is under pressure. Knowledge is being replaced with flexibility, which means lower academic floors for the children least able to absorb that cost.
While children sit their exams, the record speaks. Over 43,000 pupils displaced. Over 100 schools closed. Zero confirmed new teachers from a policy that promised 6,500. Legal guidance withheld. Safeguarding inverted. Excellence cancelled. Not fit for purpose. Should not be allowed to continue in post.
End Of Term Report: Bridget Phillipson. Grade: F. Must Do Better Is No Longer Sufficient.
As children across England sit their exams this week, some of them are doing so in schools they did not choose, having been displaced from schools their families stretched to afford, by a policy that promised 6,500 new teachers and cannot confirm a single one was hired. That is Bridget Phillipson's record. Here is the full assessment.
Private school VAT. The government promised the levy would displace around 14,000 pupils into the state sector and fund 6,500 new teachers. The original internal estimate was 3,000 pupils. The actual figure is over 43,000, three times the revised estimate and fourteen times the original one. Over 100 private schools have closed, including schools that explicitly named the VAT policy as the cause of their collapse. Fees have risen on average 14 percent, substantially above Treasury forecasts, hitting middle income families hardest, the people Labour claimed it was protecting. Smaller, more affordable independent schools have been destroyed. The country's most prestigious and expensive institutions have barely noticed.
On the 6,500 new teachers: when asked in Parliament how many had actually been recruited using the VAT revenue, a government minister declined to answer. The question was put directly and left unanswered. The government does not know, or will not say, how many teachers its flagship policy created. What is known is that more teachers have left the profession than joined it in the last recorded period. The state sector is absorbing tens of thousands of additional pupils while the teaching workforce shrinks.
Kemi Badenoch called Phillipson a spiteful class warrior. The evidence supports the description. The policy was not designed around evidence. The government's own estimate was out by a factor of fourteen. It was designed around ideology, the belief that private education is an offence against equality and that taxing it is its own reward regardless of consequences. The consequences landed not on Eton but on families who stretched to afford smaller schools that no longer exist.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that sex under the Equality Act means biological sex. That was one year ago. The Equality and Human Rights Commission drafted its code of practice. Phillipson received it and sat on it. Baroness Falkner, who oversaw the drafting, said publicly that the guidance is ready and that the delay is political. The charge has gone unanswered. The minister holds the title Secretary of State for Women and Equalities while withholding the legal protections the law requires her to implement.
Schools are being nudged toward identity-based decision-making in areas that demand caution, maturity and parental involvement. Teachers are placed in an impossible position, told to affirm identity claims before maturity, before medical certainty, often before parents are informed. The Cass Review explicitly warned against premature affirmation. The guidance ignores that warning. When things go wrong it will not be ministers who face the consequences. It will be teachers.
The Eton-backed free sixth form in Middlesbrough, a free school for deprived pupils in one of England's poorest areas, was cancelled not because it failed but because it threatened to succeed in a way the government could not control.
The curriculum is being diluted. The EBacc is under pressure. Knowledge is being replaced with flexibility, which means lower academic floors for the children least able to absorb that cost.
While children sit their exams, the record speaks. Over 43,000 pupils displaced. Over 100 schools closed. Zero confirmed new teachers from a policy that promised 6,500. Legal guidance withheld. Safeguarding inverted. Excellence cancelled. Not fit for purpose. Should not be allowed to continue in post.
End Of Term Report: Bridget Phillipson. Grade: F. Must Do Better Is No Longer Sufficient.
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