Jess Phillips has risked a run-in with Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson by telling teachers to ‘whinge more’ and saying ‘schools are asked to do too much’.
The outspoken Home Office minister said teachers had not been ‘thanked enough’ for all the work they had taken on over the years.
She even told them to be ‘more Birmingham binman’, referencing this year’s industrial action among refuse workers – but caught herself at the last moment by joking: ‘Don’t go on strike’.
Mrs Phillips, who has ministerial responsibility for tackling violence against women and girls, was speaking about how schools can help combat the issue.
She addressed heads in London at the annual conference of the Girls’ Schools Association, which represents more than 100 top private schools as well as some state ones.
In her wide-ranging speech, she also spoke about how men and boys had not been allowed to contribute to the debate enough, leading them to feel they were all being ‘labelled rapists’.
However, her comments about teachers will raise eyebrows since this year Mrs Phillipson has taken a bruising from teaching unions, who threatened strikes over pay and workload.
Jess Phillips (pictured) has risked a run-in with Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson by telling teachers to ‘whinge more’ and saying ‘schools are asked to do too much’
Outspoken Home Office minister Mrs Phillips said teachers had not been ‘thanked enough’ for all the work they had taken on over the years (pictured: Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson)
Talking about her Birmingham Yardley constituency, Mrs Phillips said: ‘I’ve got teachers in one school who are doing washing for the kids, who are living in temporary accommodation.
‘I can’t stress enough how I think that teachers should be allowed to teach and enrich the lives of young people and not have to worry so much about their homes or whether their clothes are clean, and whether they’ve got enough to eat.
‘I can only thank the education professionals.
‘Nearly 40 per cent of children in my constituency are living in poverty. The teachers there, oh my God they are doing their bit.’
She added: ‘I don’t feel like education has been thanked enough, actually, for the level that it has been asked to take on. And largely you didn’t whinge.
‘You should whinge more. Be more Birmingham binman.’
But she joked: ‘Don’t go on strike.’
Mrs Phillips, whose father was a teacher, spoke about ‘prevention’ of violence against women and girls.
She even told them to be ‘more Birmingham binman’, referencing this year’s industrial action among refuse workers – but caught herself at the last moment by joking: ‘Don’t go on strike’
Pictured: Refuse workers marching in Birmingham earlier this year
She said schools were ‘going to be part of the solution’ but would need a ‘boost from Government’ in the form of law changes, resources and collaborations with partner agencies.
However, she said: ‘I sometimes feel like we just think that all solutions to all problems in society is just to say teachers are going to have to teach everything.
‘You’re going to be teaching people about mortgages, you’re going to be teaching people about terrorism.
‘It’s just a bit like, who’s going to learn maths? No-one’s going to learn maths. They’ll just be learning how to spot a terrorist. And that isn’t your job.’
She added that ‘schools get asked to do too much’ but were crucial to ‘raising brilliant safe individuals’ and reducing domestic violence.
Her comments come after Mrs Phillipson announced earlier this month that primary schools will in future be asked to teach ‘financial literacy’ as part of compulsory ‘citizenship’ lessons.
At the time, her shadow cabinet rival Laura Trott questioned whether the extra content would come at the expense of pupils being taught how to ‘add up’.
Mrs Trott said on the day of the announcement: ‘There are many things that the Government talks about adding in today, but there is little honesty about what will be squeezed out as a result.’
Headteachers’ union the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) has previously warned the burden placed on schools and teachers ‘has never been higher’.
During her appearance at the GSA conference, Mrs Phillips said a ‘huge and worrying’ rate of domestic and sexual violence within teenage relationships has grown.
She added: ‘Certainly you cannot have girls who will thrive in their lives – all that effort you might put into their academia – it doesn’t matter how clever, how brilliant they are. If they fall prey to this violence, all of that will have been wasted.’
She also warned that harm had been caused by not including boys and men in conversations about sexual harassment, exemplified by the #MeToo movement.
‘So many things have changed because of that, but boys were not invited into that conversation,’ she said.
‘And actually what it sounded like to them is: “We think you’re all rapists”.’
Appearing to reference boys being captured by extreme online influencers, she added: ‘I don’t think that we invited boys into that conversation at all and then someone else had that conversation with them. They found it somewhere else and those people were not to be trusted and they didn’t have those boys’ best interests at heart.’