How to Fix Broken Britain with UK's Strictest Headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh

Do we have a problem with kids being radicalized?

Radicalized how?

Well, it seems that there are more younger people that are going out and committing heinous crimes at the moment. Stabbings, shootings. Young, impressionable kids.

Yeah, I mean, when you say, are they being radicalized, that sounds like it's too direct, that they're going somewhere and that there's a bunch of adults who are saying, get up to this, get up to that. I would just say, is that not.

Is that not why a 17 year old would go and stab a load of kids? They. Because they've been infiltrated by an adult.

Oh, I see, you're talking about that kind of. That is radicalization.

Yes.

I just thought you meant knife crime was going up.

Well, it is also, isn't it?

Yes, but they're separate things. So radicalization, Both. Yeah. Okay, so there's the radicalization that you're talking about, Islamic radicalization. You're talking about where children, young people end up perhaps attending a mosque where they're being taught various things that are very dangerous and they become radicalized and very angry. They go online, they access materials, and they meet certain people who radicalize them and then they end up stabbing someone and so on. That's radicalization. Then there is just the demise generally of our Western values and our Western ways of being where young people, if their families and their schools are not supporting them properly, they. They sort of dissolve into someone who joins a gang because they're looking for belonging. They haven't got any sense of success at school. They have no sense of belonging at school or at home, perhaps dad isn't in the home, etc, and they end up going down a route that means that they are. They're under pressure to carry a knife and then they end up using the knife and so on. Well, that's a different thing from the very deliberate radicalization that we talked about with regard to Islamic radicalization.

Both feel at the moment like they're on the rise.

Yeah.

What do you think?

Yeah, it's hard to say. I mean, sometimes things go up and down, you know, historically, especially when it comes to general knife crime and so on. When I think about big cities like London or New York and et cetera, you know, New York in the 1980s was a real nightmare and Giuliani managed to turn it around and got to be a lot better. Yeah, the mob culture, but also just the rapes and the murders and the stealing and the stuff that you're sort of suggesting sort of falls apart bit by bit over time. And then he came in and turned it around with broken windows theory. So for your listeners, what that means is if you have a house in an abandoned area, well, a poorer area, where the house itself is abandoned and all the windows are left intact, the windows will remain intact. If you break one window, within a couple of days, all of the windows will be broken. So the idea is you have to care about the little things. If you look after the pennies, the pounds take care of themselves. So Giuliani, upon trying to. When he took New York over, he decided to take the subway cars from their tube system. And he cleaned off all of the graffiti. And people thought, what is the point of this? Why are you cleaning graffiti when there are rapes and murders happening everywhere? And amazingly, he cleaned the graffiti and he started looking at the fare dodgers, people who were dodging fares. I mean, why do you care about fare dodgers when people are being killed?

How you do anything is how you do everything.

Well, indeed. So it all. Exactly. The police would find a fare dodger and then they'd look him up and realize, actually, he's a murderer, too. And the subway cars, you look after the pennies, parents take care of themselves. He turned around New York with that theory. It's exactly the same in schools. That's why we need uniforms. We have to care about the ties being to the top and the shirts being tucked in. And parents sometimes think, oh, come on, what matters is the learning in the classroom. Why do you care whether or not the shirt is tucked in? We care for the same reasons that Giuliani cared about the subway cars and the graffiti. It's how you run a successful school. You care about those details. And it's how you run a successful country. Frankly, the stuff that when you're saying there are more stabbings and there are more issues on the street and so on, and I'm saying that things are disintegrating around the edges, and perhaps more not just the edges nowadays. It's coming through to the middle now. That's because we're not looking after the details. And when you don't look after the details, the biggest stuff starts to happen. So when people come to visit us here at Michaela, our school, and we get visitors every single day, you know, 800 a year, more than 800 people always other teachers from other schools, they say, what do you do when a kid tells you to f off? What do you do when a kid throws a chair? What do you do when a kid gets up out of a lesson and angry and just marches out. And I say, that never happens. And then their only explanation is, well, you must have a different set of kids. You must select, obviously. And I say, no, no, no. We get given our kids by the council. We're in the inner city. What they don't understand is we look after the details. And when you're looking after the pennies, the pounds take care of themselves. And in this instance, it means the big incidents simply never happen. Or if they happen, it's once a year, you know, it. It never happens because we're looking after those tiny details. And so I've been known to say things like, you need to have a uniform in school, you need to care about shirts being tucked in, because otherwise they'll bring in knives. And people think that's Katharine Birvelsing being crazy. I mean, I'm not being crazy. What it is, is if you're constantly hassling them about their ties. What kids do with their ties is they make them short and fat. So you're meant to have your tie like this. And then what they do is that they roll it up here so that the knot is way up here, and then the tie is like that and it becomes really fat. That's what they want. Getting on at them about their ties and making sure the ties are long means that the bad boys can then show that they're bad by doing this. If everybody has a short tie, well, how does the bad boy distinguish himself? He has to go to the next level and then the next level. And that's what happens with any group of children. But it's the same thing in society. Things get worse and worse if you do not clamp down on the smaller things. So when people say, why are our police not, you know, dealing with the smaller issues? And so on, because they're having to deal with the bigger issues. The more they're being pulled out to the bigger issues, the more the smaller issues. And they'd get bigger, and then they get bigger and bigger and things get worse and worse. And that is why what's happening in society is now happening.

So why do they not know this? Because I was in Costa Coffee, a homeless guy came in and literally nicked all the sandwiches and ran out. And I looked. It all happened a bit quick because I posted it on LinkedIn, got thousands of comments. Why didn't you go and stop him? Well, I'm not the police, but I was just quite stunned. And I said to the person who was serving me the coffee, why don't you do anything about that? Oh, we're told not to. We just have to let them. And then apparently in many cities, anything under 200 quid isn't theft. So if they nick something for 195 quid, it's not even theft. Yes. So it sounds like you're saying we need to clamp down on these.

On the smaller.

Theft is theft. That's whether it's a penny suite.

That's right.

Or.

That's right. So, same thing happened to me the other day. I was standing. There was a pret. A manger, it was right in front of me, but it was one of these open. It was in Bond Street Station. So it's kind of open and you're inside the mall bit. And these kids, I say kids, they were about 17, 18, wearing tracksuits and sunglasses, or they were sort of very covered up with. With. With hats and hoods and things. And they were coming round and I saw one of them grab a Coke from the fridge as he was going, but he just kept walking. And of course, what went through my mind, I thought, right, I'm a headmistress, you better put that coat back, is what I thought. And I went to go up to him and then I thought, well, what if he's got a knife, you know, am I being crazy, you know, to do this? And he looked at me and I looked at him and I looked at the coat and I looked back at him and I made it clear, I've seen what you've done. And they just kept walking and I didn't do anything. Now, I have to say, when I was younger, I did do stuff. I would. I remember once in Brixton, this person threw his porridge or something outside the car, you know, window. So it just fell on the street. And I went up to him, I banged on the car window and he opened it up and I picked it up and I said, you dropped this. And I gave it to him. You know, that was the kind of thing I used to do all the time. Now, I.

You should be Mayor of London then.

Well, I. I'd be much more reluctant. So this time I just looked at him and looked at the coke and looked back at him, you know. But I was thinking, I have no idea, because the. They looked intimidating, they were intimidating, the way they were walking and so on, the clothes they were wearing. And I was thinking, I just. I have no idea what's going to happen now. So when you say things are getting worse, I think that's right. I think 20 years ago, I had the Confidence to be able to do that. And that shows actually, you know, your confidence, the public's confidence, Costa's confidence of their staff. I don't blame Costa. Telling the staff not to do anything about it.

I don't blame the staff. Why would they. Getting paid 12 pound an hour.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So. And there's real danger, you see, 20 years ago, there wasn't real danger, so it. It made sense. Whereas now you're risking your life and then. And so why are those knives on the street? See, that's where. When you say London mayor and so on, when we're not dealing with the smaller things, when the police are not able to deal with the smaller things, then the big things become a major issue. And the police, why are they not dealing with the smaller things? Because bureaucracy will be one reason. They are spending all their time filling out paperwork, which is crazy. One of the reasons why, Michaela, our school does so well is precisely because I've stabbed out bureaucracy massively. My position is, don't write it down. Don't, you know, let's do stuff. We are very. A very dynamic place where we're moving constantly and changing things constantly. We'll have several timetables in a year. For instance, most schools, you have one timetable that's fixed in September and then it doesn't change. We're constantly changing ours. Depending on what? Well, we just move with what we need. You know, bureaucracy is for the state sector in hospitals, police, schools and so on is a total nightmare. So the police are busy doing that. I also think that more recently, in the last five to 10 years, all of that stuff around hate crimes and so on, not just hate crimes, but also crimes on social media, people speaking out and saying things and so on. The way in which the police have now been focused on that, I don't blame any specific individual policemen, obviously, but the whole police force have been pushed towards that. And it means that's where their eyes go. That's what they're looking at instead of looking at the small issues that are going on on the street.

So, for example, when labour took over, they started putting people in prison for social media posts. Prisons that are full where convicted criminals were getting released early. Yeah, why are we doing that?

I know. Okay, so let me put it. I'll put it to you from their point of view, what they think. So they think that they don't want to have race riots and they're worried about the disintegration of the country, you know, across tribal and racial lines, which is a good thing to worry about. I think that's, that, that's, that's a good thing to not want to have to happen. So they then think we, politicians think we better not tell people what's going on, because if we tell them, then we're going to have a reaction and that we don't want that reaction. But the more they don't tell people, the more suspicious people get of the government, obviously, because they know they're not being told. And then that means tiny little things can spark in a community to make a riot happen, because they don't trust the information they're getting, not just from the politicians, but also from the media. They don't trust the media, which I can understand. I mean, I, I get it from both sides. I, I can see it from both sides. And then as soon as something is sparked, politicians and the media go, right, well, obviously they were told too much and, and then they double down even more on the idea that we shouldn't be telling them anything.

And then if they just actually deal with the actual crime that happens, as opposed to the spoken hypothesis.

Well, I don't think that they're not dealing with the crimes that are happening. I mean, that guy, whatever his name is, the one with the Southport situation, I mean, he's obviously been. There's been a trial. I mean, they are dealing with it. They're not. Not dealing with it.

But isn't, like, conviction rate of rape and theft so low in the UK, like, 3%? I think it's really low.

Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah. And I think, I think you felt that also that we don't feel as safe and there seems to be more crime and we're not dealing with the little things.

Yes. So that's the thing that I'm interested in. Although you're absolutely right that, like, at school, I feel schools are a microcosm of society.

They are. And I'm going to get to that, you know. Yeah.

I come back to school to say in school, it's true. It's not just that we, we're successful here, not just because we look after the little things, but because we also take it very seriously on the other end. So when a kid does something bad, they go into our referral center, meaning that they're working in silence in a little cubicle for the whole day and they're not given biscuits and tea and, oh, poor darling, let's have a chat. It's something. They don't want to go there, you know, and we take that very seriously. So you have it happening on both ends. The big stuff, something happens, and the little stuff, we're on it. So the little stuff doesn't become the big stuff.

Yeah.

What you're saying is that we're not dealing with it, with the big stuff. Doesn't feel like in the courts. And to be honest, I don't know. I can't tell you about the stats for that. And if that's the case, then that is also a huge problem. But this, the little stuff, what ends up happening. So in a school, the police are like the teachers in a school where you're not dealing with the little stuff and clamping down and making sure there's order and so on. The teachers give up. They sort of go, gosh, well, another day in the trenches, off I go. And they don't really expect that much of the kids. They're not pushing them. They're not. They find it hard because they're exhausted because they know that the school isn't tight, you know. Now, it's the same with the police. If they know, gosh, if I arrest him for that, I have to write up a whole load of paperwork. That's going to mean another two hours of writing. Oh, I can't be bothered. They give up because there's too much of a burden on their shoulders, you know? Now, I'm not talking about any specific one person, policeman or teacher. I'm just saying culturally, I know that's what human beings do. They give up because they think this is too much trouble. Exactly. It's like the Costa stuff.

Yeah.

It's not worth it. It's like me with the kid in the Coke bottle. It's not worth it.

Yeah.

You know, so we all do it. It's not. It's just human nature. Obviously you give up because you think I'm the only person doing this the right way and nobody else is. And it's what you said, well, it's not my job to go after this guy. Why am I going to do. Should be the police. And the police are thinking, yeah, but it should be my. My bosses. And the bosses are thinking, yeah, but what about the mayor? But what about the politicians? And everybody's passing the buck, as it were, because that's what it is to be human.

Okay, so on the other side of it, we've got Elon Musk, who's gone into the government with Doge, exposing all the wastage, getting rid of most of the government workers and just blowing it up from the inside out.

Yeah.

As an outside Observer. And as an entrepreneur who doesn't like bureaucracy wastage friction, it feels like the UK could do with some of that. What do you think?

Definitely, definitely, definitely. I mean, look, I have to say, I mean, I think Elon has his issues. You know, it's not like I'm some major Elon fan. I think it was perhaps ill judged to have made that salute or, you know, the, the, you know, what he did.

Did he, did he do that, though?

What do you mean? Well, who did? What do you mean?

Yeah, but like. No, but I mean, number one, the media love to twist something and you can, you can get a still of anyone doing a salute. I know, but they've tried to do it with a lots of other people doing this. They might have just had an itchy armpit they were just about to scratch, you know.

No, no, but I saw the video. I mean, the point is, it was just like.

It was just like, you know, a primate showing his power. He's not a Nazi.

Oh, no, I know, I know he's not a Nazi. No, no, no, I'm not saying he's Nazi.

So to do that, I think the media have just.

Well, I assume so do you think.

That was a Nazi salute? No. So then what's the issue?

Because we're not dealing with rational people. I mean, the fact is that it was a stupid thing to do. It was just. It was an own goal. Why do it now? I assume it was one of these Roman salutes is what they say. I don't really know what he was doing. But the fact is, why invite that, right? Why do.

Should we not be looking at his policies, his actions, his value, his contribution?

Look, it can both be the case that I agree with you, he's not a Nazi, that we should be looking at his policies and all of that.

But you just think doing that was a bad move.

But it was just. It was a bad move. He didn't do that. He did something like this, some nonsense like that. In fact, I ought to be careful doing it on here.

Yeah, yeah, but. Yeah, well, that's it. Otherwise someone could just steal that and. Oh, you're a Nazi. I just think that's just media bullshit.

Yes.

The way that they twisted that. I mean, that's my personal opinion. You know, he's not given any other indication or behaviors that he's a Nazi, has he?

No, I'm not saying he's Nazi.

No, I know you're not, but like, why do we focus on that and not his.

Of course, and we should be 100% critical of everyone who's doing. I'm just saying he shouldn't have done it because otherwise, like, I should probably not have done that right now. You better cut it out of here.

Hey, that's your thumbnail, Harry.

We've got your thumbnail, you know.

Well, you did it more like a queen's wave, so. You're right.

Okay. Yeah, I just. Anyway, my point is. Yes, I do think that what he's doing is good in terms of. I mean, all I'm saying. Also. I'm also saying I do think there's something problematic about the fact that he's the super rich guy and he's a friend of Trump's, he hasn't been elected. And he does seem to have this very prominent. And he has a prominent position where a lot of people are listening to.

Him now, which has always been the way. It's just people have done it. Bill Gates has had a lot of power before. Other billionaires have had powers before, haven't they?

Yeah, and I'd say there's something wrong with that. I mean, I'm not saying it's the biggest deal, you know. Cause I feel like you might jump down my throat for saying it, but.

No, we're just discussing. I'm not jumping down your throat.

But I do think that as a society, we need to worry. Not worry, that's too much. But we need to think about whose voices are amplified. So what the left would say. And I think there's a point to this, they worry that marginalized voices are not amplified enough and that men like Elon Musk, who's very rich and very powerful, his voice is amplified millionfold. Whereas the voices perhaps of some of the families who send their children here to school, we never hear from them. And I think that there is a point to that. I'm not saying there's anything to be done necessarily. I don't know what we can do about it, but it's something for us all to be aware of.

Can I jump in and ask you, is there an argument that this is happening because of how things have been? For example?

Yes.

We have Andrew Tate, who set up Political Particle Bruv, which we'll come to later. And running for Prime Minister, you know, if the current system was run a bit better, we wouldn't have these extremes, would we?

Yeah.

You know, the governments are clearly really bloated. They're clearly wasting. Even people really far on the left had Rory Stewart on the show and he's like, governments are so Wasteful.

Although I'm not sure he's really far on the left.

Well, I think he is. I mean, not. Not as far as Alistair Campbell, but he's pretty. He's pretty left. He's pretty left, yeah.

I mean, I agree he's on the left. I'm not sure that he's far on the left, but maybe that's because I work in teaching, so I see a lot more far lefties than you.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And maybe if, I don't know, I don't define myself as anything, but I suppose if I'm a bit more right of center, I might deem left. Further left. But everyone, I think, knows you said it. We're so full of bureaucracy and wastage and friction and slowness.

Yes.

And if that was not the case, we wouldn't have people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump and Andrew Tate who are very, like, masculine and cut this and take action on this and stop this.

Yes.

Would you say that's fair?

Yes, I do think that's the case. I mean, there are lots of middle of the road people who in the end have become Trump supporters because they're just so fed up and people are.

Saying, at least he's getting things done.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And in a way, it requires somebody who is as much of a, you know, of a Trumpist as he is to.

Decisive, shall we say.

Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, he's more than decisive, you know.

What words would you use?

He's a very naughty boy in many ways.

What, like your kids in school? What, what does a naughty boy mean?

I mean, well, I don't know, the list of things that he's got up to, you know, I mean, I. I can't keep track of them all. You know, the fact that he's often in court, the fact that he's insulting people left, right and center, the fact that he's always talking about what people look like. I mean, he's. He's a character, let's say that. And I can understand why there are lots of people who are deeply worried about him. I get that. But I also understand the people who have change their minds about him because in the end they just think, oh, well, you know what? Yeah, he's been arrested. Yeah, he's done things he shouldn't have done, but I don't care because he's going to get things done. He understands the common man who just has normal, everyday problems. He wants to pay his mortgage, he wants to be able to take his kids to school. And not worry about getting stabbed. He wants his kids to. To go to a school where they're learning maths and science instead of being convinced to change their gender, or where they're being told as white kids that they are oppressors and as black kids that they are victims, where they were constantly being divided according to their sexuality and their race and their religion. Where a man's children grow up being fearful of the world and of anyone who doesn't look like them because of what they're being taught in school. Look, I. Trump gets that, you know, and he's trying to put a stop to all the madness. I'm not sure. Well, I was gonna say I'm not sure he'll succeed, but I am amazed at the speed in which there has been an effect that various businesses and so on. Everyone's throwing DEI out the window, which makes me think nobody ever really believed in it in the first place, which I find amazing.

Well, that just may mean it's just more bureaucracy, isn't it, if they don't believe in it and they're doing it. Because I remember seeing this happen. I own a company, I've got 100 staff, and I remember seeing all the big companies like Facebook and Google and that. That lot bringing all these policies in. And I just sat there and I thought, surely you just pick the best person and you give. You give equal opportunity to apply, but you pick the best person.

Yes, yes. And I think if, you know, if we want to disagree with that, if.

We don't want to. Well, I mean.

Well, no, that's not true. Many people on the left who would disagree.

But if we don't want a failing state, surely we pick the best people for the job.

Yes. But let me give you.

And it felt like so much virtue signaling from these big companies.

Yes.

Or maybe it was forced upon them, like Zuckerberg said the Biden administration forced him into censorship.

Yes.

And I could see all that, and it just felt complete nonsense to me.

Yeah, I agree. Just to give their side their viewpoint for a moment, please. So I agree with everything you've just said, and I agree that it's all become performative and it's all about virtue signaling. And that, unfortunately, is how DEI stuff will always become. Which is why what you've said is correct. You need to just give it to the best person. But the point that I just made about marginalized voices not being heard, and that might include black voices or LGBT voices, or it might include poor people, you know, people who aren't who aren't out there necessarily. That's what the left is worried about. Now when you're employing somebody, for instance, there is obviously sometimes there's a connection. You meet, you're 50, the 25 year old comes along. He reminds you of you when you were 25. Oh, you went to that Oxford college. I went to that Oxford college too. You rode. Oh my goodness. I rode as well. Oh, tell me, what boat were you in? Oh, you were in the second boat. Oh, I was in the first. I was better than you. And you have a. You click in that moment. Right. Any employer knows how difficult it is to hire the best person. I find it very difficult. And I find it difficult because it's really hard to figure out who the best person is on an interview. Now we do all kinds of things.

Sorry to jump in. You've got your recruitment fees 15% plus and you've got to pay national insurance on them 15% and you've got a 4% contribution to their pensions.

Yes.

And then you make a bad hire. It's a year that it's cost you and six months that they've messed it all up.

That's right.

Can cost you a year of their salary.

So. So you don't want to hire the worst person, you want to hire the best person. But people make mistakes all the time and they make mistakes for all kinds of reasons. Because it's difficult to tell at interview. It's difficult. Perhaps you didn't ask the right questions. Perhaps they sweet talked you with their rowing story, being at Oxford at the same college as you and so on.

They used AI and got all the interview questions and learned how to game the questions.

But I'm not even. Yes, but that, that's really quite obvious. I'm just saying cultural things connect. You make you think that this person's the best and they're not.

Yeah.

Now of course, if you knew that the black guy or the LGBT guy or the poor guy with the accent from the north who doesn't really wouldn't seem to fit. But if you'd known that that person was the better guy, of course you would have chosen him. But, but because we all have our biases because interviews and you know, and it's not just one interview, it might be three interviews, whatever it is, because things don't always necessarily work. Right. You might end up taking more of the, you know, Elon type guy as opposed to somebody, one of the families who goes to the school. Now that's where the left is then saying okay, Dei you need to think about this stuff. And if it's just a drop in the ocean of I as an employer, I'm always going to check my thinking. So I do personally, because I want to get the best hire. So I always think to myself, okay, I want a teacher who has lots of presence. True. But is it that this guy has a lot of presence because he's tall and he's a man and he has a deep voice and actually went to a posh school? Is that why I'm thinking that that's something I will ask myself, you know, and I'm trying on all kinds of levels to really question my own biases. I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it's a good thing for people to do that. And I think that's where dei, the idea of it started. Right. It then grew exponentially. That's what happens, like with the whole idea of knife crime. Things expand and good ideas end up becoming bad ideas. And what DEI has became in America and is still the case here is that it becomes a virtue signaling thing. It becomes a. I don't want to be a racist, therefore I'm going to make sure that I pepper a couple of black people here. I don't want to be transphobe. So I'm going to talk about the importance of being trans on my website because that means I'll get my box ticked, people will leave me alone, and I can get on with whatever it.

Is I want to do, which then adds to bureaucracy. Oh, it's just layers of wastage.

Yes. So everybody has to do a DEI training for a day. And so the bureaucracy there is. Well, that day you could have been working on whatever project it is you're working on. Instead you're spending it in DEI training. You're sat on some Zoom call with a whole bunch of people with a trainer who really doesn't know that much about implementing dei. They know that they have the lived experience. They can tell you about their lived experience. And maybe they could have told you a really inspirational story about their own lived experience. I was gay growing up, and then I. I didn't know, but I knew I didn't really belong. And then I figured it out. But then I had to come out to my mom and she broke down in tears. And you tell an inspiration, great, you have the lived experience, but that doesn't mean that you know how to make it so that the people in an organization check their biases. Because I can tell you that's quite hard and they don't know how to do it. And so, in fact, you're putting people on this call and, and wasting their time for that whole day. And your organization is one day, you've got one day fewer that year or that quarter because you're having to do these DEI trainings all the time to spend on the projects that are important to your company. So, yeah, it does add to the bureaucracy and it makes things slow, what you were saying earlier, it slows all of us down and it means we're less productive and most importantly, I think, less satisfied and happy and purposeful. And it removes meaning from our lives. Because if, again, this comes back to the broken windows theory. If people in, in their work don't feel fulfilled and don't feel as if they have meaning and purpose in what they're doing, they're not going to give as much, they're not going to do as much. And if you have one DEI training a year, well, okay, people can put up with that. But if you're having stuff like that happen to you all of the time, it gnaws away at your soul. And it means that when you have to deliver the next day for the project, you're not as committed, your soul isn't in it in the same kind of way. And it means you then have a workforce that isn't as happy, as engaged, as excited about what you're doing. And that's. These are the hidden costs that we don't see when it comes to things like DEI training or websites that tell a whole load of nonsense and that aren't real. You know, one of the things about Mikayla that I think so different in comparison not just to other schools, but to other organizations, is that we're real. Every conversation we have is real. Every. We don't have meetings where we're just ticking boxes. Everything has a purpose. We have what's called a candor chart, which I invented, which we have one in the office downstairs, we have one in the staff room for the teachers. And we give each other stars when we're candid with each other. And it forces everybody to tell each other what they actually think about. You know, you came into my classroom yesterday and it was really annoying. Those are the pips for changeover of lesson. So they might say, you know, you came into my classroom yesterday and it was really annoying because you went into my cupboard and you got those books and I really wish you hadn't done it now. Most of the time you wouldn't say it. You just keep it to yourself. Who does she think she is coming into my classroom? And then she does something else, and that builds up and builds up over time. Whereas if you just nip it in the bud, tiny things deal with the little things, the big things never happen, you know, and that's how we run everything here, from the kids to the staff. Everything we do, we're looking at the small stuff, and the big stuff takes care of itself.

Yeah. So I've got maybe a theory on how we improve various things in society, which I'd like to ask you, but first, I need to ask this as a very disruptive head teacher.

Yes.

Has society failed our kids?

Yes, definitely. And I think that's a really great way of putting the question. Has society failed as opposed to have schools failed our kids? Because people always just blame schools. And while, of course, I want to hold schools to account and I want to hold head teachers to account and so on, the fact is that schools are just a representative of what's going on in society. You know, the teachers are in society, the head teachers are in society. Most head teachers are not like me.

I mean, you're independent. They're not. Is that what you mean by not like you?

Yeah. So, yeah, What I mean is we set up the school. My governors and I are working together, you know, and, yes, they hold me to account.

Yeah.

But I haven't been hired by them, and I do think that makes a difference. You're a headteacher in a normal school. You're too frightened to speak out on issues.

Right.

You. You're worried about losing your job, and you want to pay your mortgage and. And walk your dog and take your kids to school. You know, I'm a little bit crazy, you know, I'm quite happy to take my life into my hands and do all kinds of things. Most people aren't. And it shouldn't be the expectation for headteachers. Headteachers are normal people. So it needs to be the case that headteachers should be able to run a school and run a successful school without risking their lives, risking their livelihood, risking their mental health. You know, that that shouldn't be the case. Just like it should be possible for you to buy a sandwich at Costa and not have to go running after a bunch of people who have stolen a whole load of sandwiches. That should be the case. Unfortunately, these days, we are it. Things are getting worse and worse. So society, the values that are in society are then simply represented in schools.

Right.

So where Trump is amazing, is that, like, his phenomenon is amazing? He is changing society, right? He's changing the expectations of society. All this DEI stuff that's now being thrown out the window. Well, society is changing in the US and when society changes, the schools will change because the schools are filled with people from society.

Right?

So while of course, things need to be changed in our schools for the better, the number one thing we need to deal with is society. Because once you change society, schools will change. And then once schools change, society changes. They're working in tandem with each other all the time. So that is the. That's the key thing that I love about your question. You get that society has huge impact on children and their schools have huge impact on them and their families have huge impact on them and a family. So this is an interesting one. Fathers in the home, for instance, 50, 60 years ago, there was great shame around a dad who wasn't in the home. You know, so guess what? All the fathers were in the home. The stats that exist for America, you know, black families were more or less just about the same as white families, if not higher at certain times in terms of father being in the home. And that was in the days when racism was really, really, really bad. So the fact is that fathers were in the home for lots of reasons. I don't just think it was about shame. I don't think they were all wanting to run out the door, but then would stop like there was a force field outside the house. I can't leave because otherwise shame will come upon me. But shame will have played a small part. But then it just becomes the norm. That's just what everybody does. You get married and you stay married. That's just what you do. You certainly aren't having children outside of wedlock, you know, without even having the intention of getting married. That wasn't normal then. And so we are group animals. And group animals, well, we behave like the group. So if everybody's carrying a knife, well, you carry a knife. If everybody's letting the boy go with the Coca Cola that I saw, well, you let him go. So we just do what everybody else does. So society matters because we all just do what society does.

And is a fatherless home. One of the biggest issues with kids growing up lost, going to crime is you. Is that why you mentioned that?

Yeah.

It's the single biggest thing. Is it?

I wouldn't say it's single biggest thing. I'd say it's a big thing. There are some people, there are lots of conservatives on the, you know, in America who would say it is the Single biggest thing. Larry Elder is very good on this Black American. He has a show in California. He, he, he has loads of stats to say, you know about fathers. If, you know, if you don't have a father in the home, you're more likely to be unemployed, you're more likely to end up in jail, you're more likely to end up dead, and so on and so forth. It is definitely an issue. And then there's just. Is the father not in the home, but is he at least in the child's life? Because of course, I have families here where that is the case that. Where it's the case that the father isn't around at all, you know, because people get divorced, fine, but dad needs to be in the child's life. The fact is that there are families where dad has never existed or he existed for the first few years, and then he goes, so. And I wouldn't just blame it on the dads, by the way. You know, there's a group now, I forget their name, they call themselves Both Parents Matter, actually, where these men run this group. And I've met with them and spoken to them about helping them put together a policy for schools which are. Which is about co parenting. When families have split up, how do they co parent? Because too often fathers end up being pushed out of their children's lives, sometimes by an angry mum who is annoyed because he cheated on her and he went off or whatever it is that he's done.

Or a lawyer that likes to bill up and wind everything up.

Yes, well, and then there's that. Exactly.

The legal system.

Exactly. And so they try and help these men who are desperate to see their children and can't see their children. And there really is a huge need for that because there are the deadbeat dads. True. But there are also a bunch of dads who are desperately wanting to see their children and can't see their children because bureaucracy gets in the way and the system gets in the way. And so there are lots of children growing up, then without fathers, and then there's just the schools. I mean, schools are such an important, hugely important part of a child's life. And it's just they're everything. I mean, there's the family and then there's the school. If you think about it, what does the child see every day? Child sees his family and sees his school where he meets his peers. Okay? So that's why the school is so important. And I'm always at a loss as to how do I persuade people that schools Are so important, I would say, well, are they more important than dads? You know what? The fact is, we are where we are. Many homes do not have dads. Right? That's where we are.

So then maybe the school is even more important.

Exactly. The school then becomes even more important. And the school in some ways can help bridge the. They can help with the co parenting. So when I met these guys with both parents matter, I realized we didn't have a co parenting policy, right? And I realized that, well, it's true, we just want to get in touch with the mum all the time. And yeah, we have the dad on there on the application form and so on in our system. If mom has given them, given us his details. But if mom hasn't given us his details, we just don't have his details. And when we send out the report cards twice a year, well, we send them to mom. We don't send them to dad as well, unless dad has come in and specified, you have to send me this report. So all of that bureaucracy actually around, the logistical issues around how do you keep both parents informed when they're not in the same household? Are you motivated as a school to do that? Do you recognize as a school the importance of the father being involved in the child's life? It's. Well, I mean, nobody ever talks about this, do they? It's not something you see in the news. It's not discussed on podcasts. And so people don't realize just how important it is for the school to be in contact with both parents for the school to play that vital part. You know, when I meet with families, I always want both parents there because otherwise I'm speaking to the mum. And then what happens when the girl goes to stay with her dad? Dad doesn't know that we've agreed a bedtime of 9:30. Dad doesn't know that we've agreed. Smartphone only available for one hour. I mean, both parents need to be there. So that sort of stuff schools are struggling with all the time. There isn't anyone who's educating you about this, who's training you on it as a head teacher, as a head of year for your year group. It is just sort of being learned on the hoof, whatever the expression is, by schools, just as it goes. So, yeah, all of these things matter and I wish we talked about them more because it's what makes up society, right? That's what makes up society. And we don't, we don't seem to realize it as a society. We don't Realize just how important society is.

I suppose if you think long term, if you can sort the schools out and have an environment where the kids have good discipline, they're treated like individuals guiding on a path to finding their own uniqueness and place in the world. They're taught really good personal financial education. They're taught really good communication and interaction. You're taught how to develop relationships, and they're taught early and all the way through. Does that not dissipate 90% of society's problems? Like the economy is fucked, but people aren't taught how to manage their own money. You know, obviously I donated some of my books to the school and hopefully kids can read them young. But people come to me, not the school, to learn about personal finance because they're not taught how to manage their own money. So then they're not taught that clearly there's not enough education around, you know, being fatherless or dealing with co parenting. So why aren't we focusing early in the schools and sorting it out there?

Well, I mean, I would actually argue that it's not just that it's not being dealt with. They're being taught the opposite of what you've just said. I mean, the finance stuff, that'll be a question of lacking expertise. Teachers don't necessarily know. So that, that, that isn't. That. That isn't a culture war. Whereas what you've just said is a culture war about fathers, because they're not. If you look at personal and social education books for, you know, what you teach in that citizenship type class that schools offer, I mean, look, the group that I just told you about, both parents matter, they used to be called something with fathers, fathers matter or something like that. They had to change it because they thought they can't just dei.

Probably got to change it.

Well, they couldn't talk about fathers because you can't talk about fathers. You're not allowed. I mean, I say you're not allowed. Society doesn't allow you. That doesn't allow us to talk about the importance of others, the books that you'll use. Look, I recognize there are all different types of families out there, right? I get that. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be. You know, I get that there are LGBT families. I get that there are single parent mum families, there are single dad families, There are all kinds of families, and they all deserve recognition, and I have no problem with that. But it is true that the vast majority of families are not those different sorts of families. The vast majority of families started out as Mum and Dad, you know, and we should be aiming to try and keep them as best we can as Mum and Dad. And we aren't aiming for that, I think, because we worry about insulting the other types of families. And I don't think it's an insult to them to talk about the importance of mom and dad at least trying to. That it's. And if they don't make it, that at least dad stays in. It's so important for dad to stay in the lives of his children.

So why aren't we focusing on investing in education and getting the education right at the grassroots?

Well, like I say, people feel that it's because society is broken. It's because.

Okay, so are Labour doing what they should be doing to sort the country out, then? Because they're currently shepherding the country.

Yes. Well, I'm not sure they would be the ones. I mean, they're not going to be pushing the ideas that I'm talking about, are they? I mean, I think that's why everyone is so grateful for Trump in America, because he's stopping the gender madness. And when I say madness, I'm not saying that adults can't make a decision about what they want to do with their own bodies. Of course they should be able to, but children should not be able to do that. I don't even.

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Well, they don't know, do they? They don't know.

Yeah. Well, they're not going to eat the broccoli, are they? They're going to eat the chocolate brownie, right, if you just say, eat what you like. And similarly, if a child at 13 is a bit spotty and a bit awkward and maybe autistic or maybe suffering from mental health issues or maybe just gay, to be encouraging a child to pursue puberty blockers and to physically change who they are is deeply shocking. And that has been happening at scale across the Western world. And there are so many young people now, when I say young people, 28, 29, etcetera, who deeply regret what they did. And they blame the adults in their lives who allowed them, not just allowed them to do it, but who encouraged them, who just accepted their word for it. We're meant to be parents, we're meant to be teachers, we're meant to be adults and doctors and so on, who are helping children navigate the difficulties of puberty, the difficulties of not being as attractive as you'd like to be, not being fancied by the boy or the girl that you want. We're meant to help them and then when they get to 18, they can make their own decisions, you know, but we're meant to look after them and we're not looking after them. In fact, we're harming them. And I think what's been happening with children on that front has been deeply shocking. And I know that the cast review here in Britain exposed a lot of the issues that have gone wrong in this country. The Trump, of course, has come in and is taking an axe to this stuff, which is great to see. That's why I agree with you when you say, don't we need more of that sort of stuff in this country? I agree. I do think we need more of it. I do think we need more leaders who are willing to question what we've been doing recently. And that's not to say that I don't think that there is a point to be had. I think there is always truth in every leftist position. I really do. Which is why every time you say something, I go, well, let me just give you the point of view of the leftist, because I think there is Truth there. It's just that it goes too far. They go too far.

Which to be fair, the right can go too far as well. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, absolutely, I agree. Extremism either sense doesn't work. So I've got this theory and I think it's a pretty simple one. In fact, you've got a book at the bottom of your library there, Extreme Ownership by Jocko Wenick.

Yes, I think of him every time I'm walking on my treadmill. I do inclined walking and I do it at 5:15 in the morning and I get on there and I'm walking and I always think, well, Jocko would be here at 4:03 and he wouldn't just be walking, he'd be running. So come on Catherine, you can do it too.

Yeah, I am I similar with David Goggins. He's been on my show and whenever I think I can't do anymore, I just think of David Goggins.

Yes, yes, yes, exactly, exactly.

Yeah. So I feel like if, I guess in this interview, if people wanted to criticize me, they could say I've maybe not thought from a more inclusive or more left or understood and related more to minorities if they wanted to be critical of me. And I think about this a lot because obviously for a society to function well, the people within it need to function well. And the more people that function well in society, the better society will be. You know, if we're all able, if we can all work, if we're healthy, if we're all fit, if we're all strong, if we're all got our own clear path, blah blah blah. So I do really care and I get, if someone's been ostracized or marginalized, I get that must be terrible. And you know, people could say, well look at you, 40 odd year old white male, privileged, blah blah, blah. But I can't help but think if we just had more education for us to own our own agency, autonomy, to own our own self accountability, to be the best that we can to figure out how to learn how to be good at what we do and to find out what we want to do regardless of who you are or where you're from or whatever, surely then things change, don't they?

Yeah, I 100% agree, I 100% agree. So. But that can be true as well as marginalized voices don't get heard. I mean that, that, but if we.

Have the same message, whoever you are, wherever you're from, whatever challenges you've gone through, there are ways that you can improve your life. Because I. I believe anyone can improve their life. My friend Mark Ormrod, he's been on my show. He's a friend of mine. He had both his legs and one of his arm and half his other arm blown off. And he just broke the world record for a truck. And he's raised millions for charity. And, you know, he's got it hard and. And like, okay, he probably had good support. And I know some other people don't. I get this. But surely the message is the same, though, isn't it? Whoever you are, wherever you're from, strive to do better. Strive to seek out your path. Strive to be the best you can at that.

Yep. 100%. 100% agree. That's why Michaela is very successful, we think exactly in that way. I don't give. So I might do a. An assembly on Serena Williams, but I wouldn't talk about her being black and a victim and how difficult life is for her. My assembly on Serena Williams would be, she gets up at 4am this is how she trains. She doesn't give up. She works hard. This is how we need to be too, you know, and we never talk about our kids from a lens of victimhood. It's all about agency. It's all about, you're responsible for yourself and you're responsible for where you get to see the problem with what you're tapping into. There is the problem with the marginalized voices discussion is if people talk about that too much, then the people who feel marginalized latch onto that and want to use that as an excuse all the time. And the people who feel guilty for not being marginalized, I. E. White people, they go around going, oh, I feel so bad. I'm so privileged. I couldn't possibly judge. Oh, my goodness, let me go on a DEI course because I feel so bad for being white.

I can tell you I don't feel like that.

No, no, you obviously don't, Rob. But there's lots of white people who do feel like that. And then.

Yeah, but surely that's pushed on them by media. Do they actually really feel like that?

Oh, no, there's. Oh, no, no, they do. Yeah.

But we're all a product of our environment.

Yeah. It's fine society. Right. That's what we said.

I'm aware that the things that didn't work in my life are my fault and the things that did work in my life are my fault.

Yeah. Yes. But, okay, look, you are somebody who is very different. Okay, thank you. My mum always said it you run a podcast called Disruptors, you are happy to stick two fingers up and go, screw you. I'm doing what I want. I don't care. Da, da, da. Most people aren't like that. Most people. And I'm a bit like that, you know, which is why you're interviewing me. Most people are not like that. Most people.

But you can still learn to be good and learn to find your true path and learn to find your own value and not moan and bitch and complain.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Without going, screw you.

Yeah. No, no, no, I understand that, but it's when you say but they're just the way we were talking about the white guilt point. You know, why is it that so many white people end up feeling guilty?

Because DEI went too far, imposed upon them that they should feel guilty.

Yes.

I never even thought about white privilege until it was called a thing.

Yes.

Like, I was just born. You were born as you are. I was born as I am.

Exactly. So when one talks about this stuff too much, that means the effect is that white people feel guilty, black people feel oppressed, et cetera. And. And the whole of society then changes. You know, one of the things that I keep saying to my younger staff is I say to them, you have no idea what things were like 20 years ago. You know, you weren't really around. I mean, they were around, but they were young. Yeah, I said, I say to them, you don't get it. 20 years ago I was a fully functioning adult. 30 years ago I was a fully functioning adult. And I remember what it was like. Race relations were better in the 90s and the early 2000s than they are now. You know, religious issues in the country were better then than they are now. All the stuff around being LGBT and so on, all of it, everything was better then. So we are getting worse, not better. As you said, knife crime, you know, children being radicalized, etc. So why is that happening? I suppose it's because we're talking about the marginalized voices too much. We're talking too much about the victims and the ones who are not the Elon Musk's of this world. And while I have my criticisms, as I mentioned earlier, about not just not Elon Musk, you know, necessarily too much.

Power in the hands of one.

Yes. And too much power in the hands of a few, really. And often those few tend to be from certain types of backgrounds, etc, you know, often, not always, but often.

I mean, some of a lot of them are immigrants and a lot of them had a hard upbringing it was their hard upbringing that gave them the motivation to be successful. Yeah, a lot of them.

You say that. I think you're talking about business, maybe.

Yeah, probably the lens through business.

Yeah, yeah. And that's different. I'm talking about politicians. I'm talking about the. The people who run the media and the politicians. Yeah, I suppose that's who. I mean.

Yeah.

Because they have influence. Business owners don't tend to have the reach that they have in terms of influencing the way society thinks. You know, and, and if. If there are a whole load of very white guilty people running a particular newspaper, then they tend to write things that encourage other white people to feel guilty. Right. And then that guilt spreads and becomes normal, and it's part of society. So that's why the. The media and the politicians are so important, because they really influence society. Whereas a business guy, he runs his business, he brings up his kids. You, for instance, you have various businesses. I mean, I know you have your podcast, but let's leave the podcast aside. If you were just running your businesses, you wouldn't have much influence. You would just be a guy running your businesses and bringing up your kids. Whereas somebody who runs a newspaper has huge influence. Somebody who runs a TV program, a news channel, that kind of thing. They're having huge influence, which is why Trump is so important, because he's the President of the United States. He's got huge power. And of course, we see the difference he's making. We see the cultural changes that are being made in society right now simply because the president has changed. So when you say about labor, you know, the fact is, labor isn't going to think like that. They don't. That's not their raison d'. Etre. They think they're very pro dei. They get down on one knee. You know, they, you know, the, the Black Lives Matter stuff. They were on one knee. That's who they are. And I'm not even criticizing them for being who they are. I'm just saying that's their.

You also said society is broken.

Yes. So, yes, because of that. But what I mean. Okay, what I mean by I'm not criticizing them. And this is the thing about the small things. Well, Keir Starmer gets on one knee, you think, well, it's not a big deal. Come on. He's just. He's just showing some solidarity with black people in this moment. It's not a big deal. The problem is he does it in his powerful position. Somebody else does it. Somebody else does it. Somebody else does it. And it grows and then it becomes part of what we think in society. That's where. That's. Yeah, that, that's. That's the problem. So I don't criticize the individual. When I didn't take that Coke bottle, you know, I was thinking, go and tell that boy off.

Right? Yeah.

And I didn't do it.

Right.

Multiply that by 20 by 200 times in my lifetime, multiply that by other people doing exactly the same thing, and society falls apart.

So you said earlier, values. We don't have the same values. What few simple values do you think we've lost in society that if we had them back, might fix society?

Well, the values that we teach the children here. So this stuff you were just saying, really, personal responsibility. You have agency, you are in charge of your life. Extreme ownership, you know, whatever you come from, whatever is up against you, there will be obstacles in front of you. Yes, there may be more obstacles in front of you than there is in front of somebody else. Doesn't matter. You've got one life to live. You got to take that agency and do something with it. So personal responsibility, a sense of duty towards other people and the idea of self sacrifice.

So.

We recite the poem Invictus and at the end says, I'm the master of my fate, I'm the captain of my soul. And we all put our hands there and we are the captains of our fate and soul and so on. We are in charge. But we have to think about other people. It's not just about what we do for ourselves. And we have to give back to society, not just when we're older, but also when I get a detention. At the end of the day, I'm not just getting a detention and letting myself down. I'm letting my whole form group down. I'm letting my family down because I brought shame on my family. Because now that sounds a bit much when you just get a silly detention, especially here at Michaela, where everybody gets detention, you know, I'm just saying, when you do something wrong, there's a sense of shame, right? But also you owe something to other people. You owe something to your parents, you owe something to your children. You have a sense of duty. I'm a mother, I'm a father, I'm a brother, I'm a sister. I. I therefore have a duty to do X, Y and Z to be a certain type of person. And when I'm that kind of person, I might sacrifice. A mother sacrifices all the time for her child. She'd rather put her feet up and just do whatever she wants. But in fact, she gets up early in the morning, she cooks her children her breakfast, their breakfast, she takes them to the violin lesson, she looks after her children and she sacrifices so much of what would be good for her for the sake of her child. Now that idea of self sacrifice needs to be taught in children. Children do not naturally become grateful, kind, decent, hard working. These things have to be taught. I think we've forgotten that. I think we embrace the idea of children just doing what they want and leading themselves as opposed to the adults leading them and teaching them the kinds of values that will then this is the irony. So if you teach kindness, you teach gratitude, you teach. All that stuff I've just said makes it far less likely that they're going to be racist, doesn't it? If they're kind and decent people who sacrifice for others and recognize that they have impact on the world and that they are in control of their lives. So when DEI is trying to reduce the racism in the world, actually the best way of reducing racism in the world is to teach children the right sorts of values. And if only I could get people.

To understand that, yeah, well, I can help. I think I've made a lot of money in my life and by far the best feeling is not all the cars I've bought, it's the money I've given away and the people I've helped. And, and I don't care how hard a male you are. Yes, I know very hard males who sob and get soppy and feel amazing when they help other people.

Yes.

And I guess children, I've got kids, as you know. So children are, I guess in many ways inherently selfish. Not all the time, but at times. So if you can teach them the selfless act gives you great selfish benefit, how good it feels. And maybe we don't teach because, you know, we're told to be grateful and to be kind, but almost like be grateful, be kind as opposed to teaching what the benefits of gratitude and kindness are.

Well, when you are grateful it becomes obvious. But the key thing with children, and that's where school is so important and a family is so important, is that you're right, you can't. You don't say be kind and that's it. So I might in, I do my Serena Williams assembly, for instance, I say, look how hard she works, look how determined she is, look how focused she is, look how she deals with hardship and difficulties and so on. I tell them, but I can't leave it at that. They then need to experience it now. So you can tell someone, be kind. Yeah, we can do an assembly on being kind. But then there need to be events, scenarios, experience. They can demonstrate kindness and where they can experience kindness, they need both happening.

Right.

And it needs to happen over and over and over again.

Right.

So our kids right now, for instance, are taking some internal exams this week. And what I'm always saying to them is, we do this twice a year. Yes. We want to send a report card home to your parents. Yes. You want to know how well you're doing in your classes. Yes. We want to know how well you're doing. But actually, one of the big reasons why we do this twice a year is so that you are learning how to prepare yourself for exams. You're learning how to get to know yourselves. Oh, I do really good work after 7, but not after 8. I need to get to sleep at 9:30 if I really want to have a good day tomorrow. I like starting with the subjects I know the least about, when I'm revising and so on. Now you get to know yourself. So by the time you get to your GCSEs, this is second nature to you. You've been doing it for years. So habit formation. Next to your books, we've got James Clear's book about habits, atomic habits, in the library, because we want the kids to learn how to make these behaviors habitual. Now, kindness, gratitude, sense of duty, all the stuff I just said, it needs to be habitual. So by the time they leave us, it's just part of who they are and they leave and they go off. And they're the kinds of people who don't nurse a sense of grievance because life is unfair for them. They're the kinds of people who are grateful for what they've got, however little it is. They're the kinds of people who are going to work hard to make their lives better. They're the kinds of people who don't have to stick a black box up on Instagram to show that they're not racist, because they are just nice people, because we've taught them how to be that way. Now, that's what we should all be doing. But instead we've chosen, look, we're human beings. We are flawed. You know, I once mentioned Original sin on Twitter and of course the whole world went mad. But I'll mention it again and take my life into my hands. You know, I'm not necessarily saying there was a snake and there was an apple and all of that. I'm just saying the concept of original sin, which is that human beings are flawed, is true. We find it much more difficult to go to the gym than we do to eat the brownie. And therefore, in order to be better, we have to strive to do that every day. And children would beat each other to death over a toy if we don't teach them how to share. They need to be taught these things. We need to teach them. And we need to recognize in the first instance that humans are flawed, that they, they make mistakes, but that there should be some kind of arc of redemption that you can then make up for it and do better. Next day. You know, I didn't go on my treadmill this morning. I should have. I didn't. I'll get on it tomorrow morning. There's an ark of redemption. Yeah, I didn't tell that boy off about his Coke. Maybe I should have. But what's interesting is that I think to myself, would I do it next time? And I still don't know. That's because of where we are as a society. Society. I'm not sure I'm brave enough because I worry that I'm just. At that point, he takes out a knife and that's the end of me, you know, and that's a bit silly, isn't it? You know, it's a waste of my life over a Coke, you know, so, yeah, there's. There's so much that schools now, once upon a time, you see, families taught all of that. So one of the criticisms I have of the right is that they. They talk a lot about family and they should, but they don't recognize the. How important schools are and they don't recognize how much the woke way of being has infiltrated schools and how that is.

So.

You know, it's. It means the apocalypse. I mean, that's what we don't seem to realize.

What I mean is wokeism in schools. You mean the apocalypse.

People don't get that. So what I mean is, if everybody in schools is being taught that the most important struggle of the 21st century is climate change, and if we don't stand up to climate change, we're all going to die tomorrow, if that's what they're being taught. I'm not saying there's no such thing as climate change. I recognize there is such a thing as climate change. But if the harms are being so highlighted that children feel obliged to go and join just Stop Oil and so on, if white children are being taught that they are evil and oppressive and that Their ancestors were evil and that they need to be anti racist and go out there and stop the racism. If black kids are being taught that they are victims and are the oppressed and that white people had better condescend towards them, otherwise they're not good white people. If religion is dividing people across the country in various different ways and we encourage it in our schools by having the different groups of this is the LGBT group, this is the black group, this is the Muslim group, this is the Hindu group, and so on, if we do that, then, well, that's the end of the country. I mean, people don't seem to understand. I mean, maybe I'm making too much of a leap there. So. Because what happens is the kids grow up in a few years, four or five years, they're then 22, 23, 24, they go out and get jobs. They are part of society, they affect and change society. And our society is changed in an irreversible way. That's why it's the apocalypse. That's why schools are the most important thing of what's happening in our country. I mean, and nobody seems to understand this and I keep talking about it and nobody's listening to me.

I think you're making an impact.

Oh, yeah, well, I hope so. I'm trying. But. People don't realize children are the future. They're the future everywhere. And we should be looking after our future.

So I've got two more questions.

Okay.

My daughter's school shut down. Well, it's shutting down at the end of the year. But the announcement a few weeks ago was that it is shutting down. And I know it's because of VAT added on, because the school took half the hit on that business rates that went under the radar, but there's now business rates on private schools. And my daughter's school, which has 180 pupils and needed 220 to break even, now needs 280 to break even. And they've thrown the towel in and my wife is distraught, my daughter's distraught, and of course I put it on LinkedIn. Thousands of comments, loads of people about, well, you know, private school, you're privileged, wah, wah. But what do you think of labour putting taxes on schools? Well, surely that's the one thing we don't tax education. I mean, if you've just said how important our kids are and we're taxing education.

Yeah, and that's the thing. So if private schools were doing their jobs properly, I would be very angry about it. I'm quite happy to give them a tax exemption as long as they're doing their jobs properly. And they're not. Not in 2025. So if we could go back to 1985, I would be absolutely outraged about the fact that they were being taxed because they are doing a good for society. But I actually think too many of these private schools are doing harm to society. Now, I'm not saying your child's school, that was the case. I do understand that there are private schools out there that are doing a fantastic job, but as a whole, what are they doing? Wrong sector. They're teaching white kids to feel guilty and black kids to feel like they're victims and encouraging the whole trans stuff happening in schools. They. Okay, so the more privileged kids are the ones who end up indulging in all of this nonsense because they're privileged. You know, if you're poor, you're too busy trying to figure out how to pay the mortgage. Our kids aren't behaving in all that nonsense. They're not partaking in it because they're trying to figure out, you know, we need to put food on the table. You know, I mean, we need to. We're normal, ordinary kids in the inner city. Whereas when you come from privilege, you feel guilty about your privilege anyway. And then you're going around looking for. Hats that you can put on. Oh, you know, today I'm gay, tomorrow I'm trans, et cetera. Or actually, did you know my great grandmother was black or whatever it is to try and claim some victimhood so that you can be admired by your friends or I'm suffering from mental health issues. I'm doing X, Y and Z. You know, and that's not to say that there aren't genuine mental health issues. Of course there are. But the schools are encouraging them in this way. They are.

Okay, so I hear you. You don't think that they're doing a good job, but how's taxing them going to help them?

No, I agree that that isn't going to help them, but I'm not being as outspoken as I might have been in 1985 against, you know, because. Because I think the private schools need to buck up. I think they need to sort themselves out. I think it's completely outrageous, the. Because it's not just that they should be doing the right thing for their kids. They're meant to be showing the rest of us the way. You know, it used to be the case that I had a sign outside the school that said, private school ethos without the fees. When we opened in 2014. That was our sign, because the idea was we believe in tradition. We believe in old school type learning, teacher leading from the front, adult authority, discipline, high standards, etc, etc. I took the sign down. I don't want that sign up there anymore because private school ethos is not one that I want to copy.

Wow. Wow. What would you say is your biggest failure or regret?

You mean professionally?

I mean, however you want to answer it.

Oh, there's lots of things that, when I was younger, stupid stuff, but there's.

Always one biggest, isn't there?

Well, I'm gonna try and stick to professional because I am the strictest headmistress afterwards.

Oh, you're gonna give me a PR answer, are you?

Well, no, no. I just want it to be professional. Although I'm not sure I have any regrets professionally. I mean, you might say the speech I gave in 2010 at the Conservative Party conference, being a bit naive and going off and blowing my top about how the system was broken and so on, ended me up in a lot of hot water. And I was told I'd never work in the state sector again. And then I had to build my own school, et cetera, which is this. But then actually, if I hadn't had anything.

So that failure isn't a regret.

Yeah, exactly. So maybe. I don't know. I don't know. I can't think. I try and turn negative things into positive ones, you know, and as long as you're learning from stuff, then it's okay, I think. You know, it's amazing. Being a teacher is the best job in the world, I tell you. I mean, it may not pay a huge amount, but, you know, the other day I was in Brixton, and there is a. There's a guy who I see behind the bar every time I go into this particular restaurant, which I go into quite a lot. And he. I mean, he's been there for years and, you know, say hello, da, da, da. And then I don't just say hello. And then the other day I was in there and I overheard him talking and he was speaking in French. Now, I used to be a French teacher. I say used to be because I'm now a headteacher, you know, and I don't teach anymore and haven't done for years. And he came over to give me the food and I spoke to him in French and I said, oh, I didn't realize that you were French speaking because, I mean, he's a black guy behind the bar or whatever. And, you know, I Didn't realize he was French speaking. And he said, oh, yeah, yeah, you know, I'm from Paris. I said, oh, right. And he said, but I already knew you speak French. And I said, really? Well, how do you know that? And he said, well, when I was a kid, I went to school in Paris, and you did a French exchange with your school and you took your kids over there and then you brought us back over and I was one of the kids in the school in Paris. Now, the thing is, I used to live in Brixton, so the school I worked at was around the corner. And now he's living in Brixton. And I thought, that's the most amazing thing I've ever heard. It was just amazing he'd come from Paris and that there he was and that he remembered. And he said, I have known who you are for the last few years, but I've never wanted to say anything to you because I didn't want to freak you out because it's so weird that I've come from Paris. And anyway, Yeah, so I don't have regrets, but there are so many moments in my life like that where being a teacher, like I say, it's the best job in the world. And it's what you said earlier about how you want the kids to find a path which they're going to love and then they can get better at and they can find their place in the world, you know, because once you find your place in the world, you know, you live a really happy life.

And this show is called Disruptors, as you know, Second time being on the show. Thanks for having us here. I always love having conversations with you. What does that word disruptive mean to you?

Yeah, well, I'm always fighting for the kids. Currently fighting with our Education Secretary, you know, I'm always fighting for the kids and what is best for the kids. And too often in teaching, we teachers can't speak out. And we can't speak out because we're working in a school and you're not allowed. And if you say something, people will think it's just that school, when actually it's the whole system, but it's the kids who pay the price and the staff who pay the price, actually the teachers. And so I keep speaking out despite that, obviously, I get loads of vitriol my way, but I do it because I'm doing it for the kids, you know, because children are the future. You know, I keep saying it. Children are the future. They're the ones who they're going to be the adults, you know, we're going to hand the world to them, and we better make sure that they're ready to look after it, you know?

Yeah.

And when I say look after it, I mean lead the world. Make the world as good a place as it can be. So what you said you love giving stuff away. You know, it's the impact that we have on the world that gives us meaning, you know, Buying a car. I don't own a car. I've never owned a car. I don't even drive. I don't have a license, you know, But I have a really meaningful life. You know, money makes life easier, but it doesn't bring you meaning. It doesn't. Which is why I say teaching is the best job in the world, despite the fact that you don't make much money in it.

Well, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thanks for having us here.

Thanks for having me. All right.

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