Politics

Headteacher at Tory conference used to make kids sit in isolation if their parents couldn’t afford school lunches

Tory-supporting parents have been advised to take their children out of schools that are “too woke” by the UK’s ‘strictest headteacher’.

Addressing the National Conservatism Conference in London, Katharine Birbalsingh warned right-wingers that conservatives “will lose our country” in a bizarre rant.

She urged them to “stand up and be counted” as she said her staff are ostracised for not being liberal-minded.

In 2016, it was revealed that the free school “superhead” forced children to sit in detention if their parents cannot afford to pay for school lunches.

Birbalsingh issued parents with a letter threatening to punish pupils with “lunch isolation” if their lunch payments were not made on time.

Parents were told their children would be given a sandwich and a piece of fruit in place of their hot meal and separated from their friends at lunch time until the debts were paid off.

She also said people from poor backgrounds should not aim for Oxbridge – and should take “smaller steps” instead in her first speech as the Chairman of the Social Mobility Commission.

“We want to move away from the notion that social mobility should just be about the ‘long’ upward mobility from the bottom to the top – the person who is born into a family in social housing and becomes a banker or CEO,” Birbalsingh said.

“We want to promote a broader view of social mobility, for a wider range of people, who want to improve their lives, sometimes in smaller steps.”

Related: Wealth of Nations Index shows ‘exceptional’ drop for Britain

Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

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