Katharine Birbalsingh

Who is Katharine Birbalsingh?

Katharine Birbalsingh is a British teacher, blogger and writer who writes about the British education system. She was born in New Zealand to West Indian parents and grew up in Canada. She was then educated at Oxford where she read French and Philosophy. After graduating she settled permanently in the UK.

Birbalsingh originally gained attention as the anonymous blogger To Miss With Love, in which she wrote about her experiences teaching at an inner-city secondary school. She then came to national prominence after she spoke at the 2010 Conservative Party conference in support of the party's education policies and criticised the state of the British education system. She was asked not to attend her school "for the rest of the week while senior teachers and governors discuss her position". Birbalsingh subsequently resigned after being "asked to comply with conditions that she did not feel able to comply with", according to a report by David Barrett of The Sunday Telegraph. A campaign on Facebook was created to have her reinstated. She now writes regularly for The Daily Telegraph and Standpoint magazine. She is currently working on establishing a Free school, called the Michaela Community School, in the London Borough of Brent.