Katharine Birbalsingh

Birbalsingh came to national prominence in October 2010 after criticising the British education system at that year's Conservative Party conference, and speaking in support of the party's education policies. Referring to a "culture of excuses, of low standards ... a sea of bureaucracy ... [and] the chaos of our classrooms", Birbalsingh told the conference: "My experience of teaching for over a decade in five different schools has convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that the system is broken, because it keeps poor children poor." As a result she became the target of racist and sexist abuse on social media. After the speech Birbalsingh was asked not to attend the school at which she taught while the governors "discuss[ed] her position". She subsequently resigned "after being asked to comply with conditions that she did not feel able to comply with", according to The Sunday Telegraph. The school, St Michael and All Angels in Camberwell, London, was closed shortly thereafter and reopened with new staff and a new name. Alan Johnson, a former Labour minister of education, read on BBC Radio in February 2019 his history of the school from its foundation in the 1880s to its closure in 2011.

Birbalsingh is the author of two books, Singleholic (2009) and To Miss with Love (2011), and editor of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers: The Michaela Way (2016) and Michaela: The Power of Culture (2020). She also hosts a blog, To Miss with Love, where she writes about the education system. In 2017 she was included by Anthony Seldon in his list of the 20 most influential figures in British education, and in 2019 she was awarded the Contrarian prize.

Birbalsingh's first publication was a novel, Singleholic (2009), published under the pseudonym "Katherine Bing". Her second book, To Miss with Love (2011), was based on her blog. It was chosen as Book of the Week and serialised on BBC Radio 4. She is also the editor of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers: The Michaela Way (2016), which describes the education philosophy of Michaela Community School.

While at Oxford, Birbalsingh had visited inner-city schools as part of a scheme the university runs to encourage state-school pupils to apply, and after graduation she decided to teach in state schools herself. From 2007 she wrote an anonymous blog, To Miss With Love, in which—as Miss Snuffy—she described her experiences teaching at an inner-city secondary school. In 2010 she was the assistant head of Dunraven School, Streatham, south London, and that year she joined St Michael and All Angels Academy in Camberwell, also south London, as vice-principal.

Birbalsingh is a supporter of the traditional teaching methods described in E. D. Hirsch's The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them (1999). She writes that the book "opened [her] eyes" to what was wrong in schools, and argues that education should be about teaching children knowledge, not learning skills. Responding to the removal of Michael Gove as education secretary in 2014—Gove was also a supporter of Hirsch—she said it was a tragedy that his work would not be completed.

Birbalsingh grew up mostly in Toronto, but moved to the UK at age 15 when her father was a visiting fellow at the Centre for Caribbean Studies, University of Warwick (1989–1990). In 1996 he was promoted to professor at York and in 2003 became professor emeritus. When the family returned to Canada, Birbalsingh decided to stay in the UK. She graduated from Oxford University after reading French and philosophy at New College.

Katharine Moana Birbalsingh (born 1973) is a British education reformer and headteacher. She is the founder and headmistress of Michaela Community School, a free school (charter school) established in 2014 in Wembley Park, London.

Frank Birbalsingh moved to Toronto, Canada, in 1967, where he worked again as a supply teacher, joined the faculty at York University in Toronto in 1970, and obtained his PhD in Canadian literature in 1972. He held several other positions over the years, including a fellowship at the University of Delhi, India, and a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Auckland, New Zealand (1973–1974), where Birbalsingh was born.

Birbalsingh was born in Auckland, New Zealand, the elder of two daughters of Frank Birbalsingh, a teacher of Indo-Guyanese origin, and his wife, Norma, a nurse from Jamaica. Birbalsingh's father and grandfather were both educators. Her paternal grandfather, Ezrom S. Birbalsingh, was head of the Canadian Mission School in Better Hope, Demerara, Guyana. Her father (born 1938 in Berbice, Guyana) obtained his MA in English in London in 1966, specializing in Commonwealth literature, and worked as a supply teacher in Birmingham and London.