{"id":579309,"date":"2025-11-19T00:07:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T00:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/579309\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T00:07:25","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T00:07:25","slug":"jess-phillips-tells-teachers-to-whinge-more-like-birmingham-bin-workers-and-says-schools-are-asked-to-do-too-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/579309\/","title":{"rendered":"Jess Phillips tells teachers to ‘whinge more’ like Birmingham bin workers and says ‘schools are asked to do too much’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jess Phillips has risked a run-in with Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson by telling teachers to \u2018whinge more\u2019 and saying \u2018schools are asked to do too much\u2019.<\/p>\n

The outspoken Home Office<\/a> minister said teachers had not been \u2018thanked enough\u2019 for all the work they had taken on over the years.<\/p>\n

She even told them to be \u2018more Birmingham<\/a> binman\u2019, referencing this year\u2019s industrial action among refuse workers \u2013 but caught herself at the last moment by joking: \u2018Don\u2019t go on strike\u2019.<\/p>\n

Mrs Phillips, who has ministerial responsibility for tackling violence against women and girls, was speaking about how schools can help combat the issue.<\/p>\n

She addressed heads in London<\/a> at the annual conference of the Girls\u2019 Schools Association, which represents more than 100 top private schools as well as some state ones.<\/p>\n

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 \u2018labelled rapists\u2019.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Jess <\/p>\n

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’<\/p>\n

\"Outspoken <\/p>\n

Outspoken Home Office minister Mrs Phillips said teachers had not been \u2018thanked enough\u2019 for all the work they had taken on over the years (pictured: Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson)<\/p>\n

Talking about her Birmingham Yardley constituency, Mrs Phillips said: \u2018I\u2019ve got teachers in one school who are doing washing for the kids, who are living in temporary accommodation.<\/p>\n

\u2018I can\u2019t 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\u2019ve got enough to eat.<\/p>\n

\u2018I can only thank the education professionals.<\/p>\n

\u2018Nearly 40 per cent of children in my constituency are living in poverty. The teachers there, oh my God they are doing their bit.\u2019<\/p>\n

She added: \u2018I don\u2019t feel like education has been thanked enough, actually, for the level that it has been asked to take on. And largely you didn\u2019t whinge.<\/p>\n

\u2018You should whinge more. Be more Birmingham binman.\u2019<\/p>\n

But she joked: \u2018Don\u2019t go on strike.\u2019<\/p>\n

Mrs Phillips, whose father was a teacher, spoke about \u2018prevention\u2019 of violence against women and girls.<\/p>\n

\"She <\/p>\n

She even told them to be ‘more Birmingham binman’, referencing this year’s industrial action among refuse workers \u2013 but caught herself at the last moment by joking: ‘Don\u2019t go on strike’<\/p>\n

\"Pictured: <\/p>\n

Pictured: Refuse workers marching in Birmingham earlier this year<\/p>\n

She said schools were \u2018going to be part of the solution\u2019 but would need a \u2018boost from Government\u2019 in the form of law changes, resources and collaborations with partner agencies.<\/p>\n

However, she said: \u2018I 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.<\/p>\n

\u2018You\u2019re going to be teaching people about mortgages, you\u2019re going to be teaching people about terrorism.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s just a bit like, who\u2019s going to learn maths? No-one\u2019s going to learn maths. They\u2019ll just be learning how to spot a terrorist. And that isn\u2019t your job.\u2019<\/p>\n

She added that \u2018schools get asked to do too much\u2019 but were crucial to \u2018raising brilliant safe individuals\u2019 and reducing domestic violence.<\/p>\n

Her comments come after Mrs Phillipson announced earlier this month that primary schools will in future be asked to teach \u2018financial literacy\u2019 as part of compulsory \u2018citizenship\u2019 lessons.<\/p>\n

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 \u2018add up\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mrs Trott said on the day of the announcement: \u2018There 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.\u2019<\/p>\n

Headteachers\u2019 union the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) has previously warned the burden placed on schools and teachers \u2018has never been higher\u2019.<\/p>\n

During her appearance at the GSA conference, Mrs Phillips said a \u2018huge and worrying’ rate of domestic and sexual violence within teenage relationships has grown.<\/p>\n

She added: ‘Certainly you cannot have girls who will thrive in their lives \u2013 all that effort you might put into their academia \u2013 it doesn\u2019t matter how clever, how brilliant they are. If they fall prey to this violence, all of that will have been wasted.’<\/p>\n

She also warned that harm had been caused by not including boys and men in conversations about sexual harassment, exemplified by the #MeToo movement.<\/p>\n

\u2018So many things have changed because of that, but boys were not invited into that conversation,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n

\u2018And actually what it sounded like to them is: \u201cWe think you\u2019re all rapists\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

Appearing to reference boys being captured by extreme online influencers, she added: \u2018I don\u2019t think that we invited boys into that conversation at all and then someone else had that conversation with them.\u00a0They found it somewhere else and those people were not to be trusted and they didn\u2019t have those boys\u2019 best interests at heart.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jess Phillips has risked a run-in with Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson by telling teachers to \u2018whinge more\u2019 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,21996,748,92,393,4884,257,12,1992,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-579309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-bridget-phillipson","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-dailymail","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-london","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-the-home-office","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115573454410282996","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}