Conservative parents should be willing to take their children out of schools if they are “too woke”, a prominent headteacher has said.
Katharine Birbalsingh, head of Michaela Community School in Wembley, used a speech at a conference in London to warn: “If we don’t get on top of the culture that these schools are propagating, we will lose our country.”
In a speech that culminated in “Britain’s strictest headteacher” delivering lines from the film Gladiator, Ms Birbalsingh bemoaned children “leading” schools, attacked private schools for being more “woke” than state providers, and claimed children at some schools are allowed to wear ears and tails because they “identify as cats”.
She also called on the audience at the National Conservatism conference to act if they felt their children’s schools did not reflect their “small c conservative values”.
She said: “As GK Chesterton said, the true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.
