Best of the Spectator
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
Quite right!: Katharine Birbalsingh interview
55 minutes Posted Jul 28, 2026 at 11:01 pm.
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Katharine Birbalsingh is the founder and headmistress of Michaela Community School in Wembley, and has been dubbed Britain’s strictest headteacher. Under her leadership, Michaela has become one of the country’s most successful state schools, while openly challenging the progressive orthodoxies of the British education system.

On Quite right!, Katharine argues that ethnic-minority pupils do not need to see themselves reflected in every aspect of a culture to feel that they belong – and that suggesting otherwise may itself be racist. She and Michael also discuss whether individualistic parenting has gone too far, why ritual should be at the heart of British schools and why children need a return to small-c conservative values.


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