Debating Educational Autonomy and Reform

The freedoms that the UK's academy schools have been granted could be curtailed.

Labour's Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill proposes centralising and standardising decision making across state schools in the UK. The Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, claims this will improve conditions for every student across the country.

Katharine Birbalsingh, who has been called "Britain's strictest headteacher", is highly critical of these developments, calling them cultural Marxism. However, senior educator Leora Cruddas - who leads an organisation representing two thirds of UK academies - has welcomed many of the measures in the bill.

Pippa Bailey is joined by Birbalsingh, Cruddas and the New Statesman's Hannah Barnes to discuss who should decide how and what children are taught.

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