Open letter to Bridget Phillipson
The Department for Education (DfE) invited reality TV star Gemma Collins to take part in a PR stunt that left educators and parents reeling.
Rather than engaging with the profession about crumbling schools, their punishing workloads, or the crisis in SEND, Bridget Phillipson took part in a series of mock interviews that showed her up as out of touch.
Now, we love Gemma Collins just as much as everyone else, but when your education system is on the point of collapse, it’s time for a serious conversation with the profession, not play acting with celebrities.
The NEU is sending the open letter below to the Secretary of State to remind her what her priorities are.
Add your name to the growing list of experts, parents and educators calling for the government to engage with professionals and parents, rather than celebrities, to Save Education.
-- Letter that will be sent to Bridget Phillipson --
Dear Bridget Phillipson,
We the undersigned are writing to express our serious concern at the series of social media videos recently released by your department featuring the television personality Gemma Collins, and at the way you have responded to those raising concerns about it.
In writing to you we do not seek to criticise Ms Collins, who appears to have given her time freely and in good faith, nor your stated desire to reach audiences beyond the usual channels.
But with such serious problems facing our schools, parents and educators expect the Education Secretary to focus her time on priorities such as the crisis of underfunding, the chaos of SEND provision and excessive educator workload. They have rightly responded with anger and dismay at this astonishingly crass promotional campaign.
By engaging with a reality TV star, rather than the reality of life on the ground in our schools, your department shows itself to be out of touch with the challenges parents and educators are facing.
Teachers and support staff are managing class sizes, behaviour and SEND needs unlike anything this century. To this audience, the audience your department most needs onside, social media content built around a reality television personality appears tone-deaf to their experiences.
To SEND parents struggling daily with a system that families and professionals describe as broken, a scripted comedy skit set to the soundtrack of The Devil Wears Prada completely fails to recognise the scale of their despair.
The School Teachers' Review Body (STRB) submitted its report to you in February. Three months on, it remains unpublished. The profession has no decision on next September's pay award, and no answer to the question every head teacher is asking, which is how any award will be funded when the Treasury has stated there will be no new money for it. Alongside this, the SEND consultation has just closed and awaits a response. Choosing to give ministerial time and your department's official platforms over to celebrity content, rather than to a clear public statement on any of these matters, is a question of judgement that goes well beyond communications strategy.
Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live yesterday, you dismissed criticism of this publicity as showing "a big dose of snobbery". Those raising objections include autistic adults, parents of children with EHCPs, support staff, classroom teachers and head teachers. They are not snobs. They are people who have watched the department on which they depend appear, in their view, not to take their lives seriously.
We call on you, at the earliest opportunity, to:
Immediately publish the STRB report, your decision on teachers' pay, and confirmation of how that award will be funded.
Make a clear public statement on when and how the government intends to respond in substance to the SEND consultation.
Withdraw the "snobbery" remark.
Give assurance that the next time the department wants to highlight an authentic voice on education, it will turn first to the hard-working leaders, teachers, teaching assistants and support staff who are best qualified to provide this.
Sincerely,
