Teachers should "whinge more" about the growing burden placed on schools, home office minister Jess Phillips has told headteachers. Speaking at the Girls' School Association conference in London on Tuesday, Phillips warned that schools have not been thanked enough for what they have been asked to take on.
The minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls told delegates teachers should "be more Birmingham bin worker" – before joking: "But don't go on strike." Phillips, who is MP for Birmingham Yardley, said education has shouldered massive responsibilities beyond teaching as public services have struggled.
"Teachers should be allowed to teach and enrich the lives of young people, and not have to worry so much about their homes, and whether their clothes are clean, whether they've got enough to eat," she said, referencing headteachers in her constituency going above and beyond for students.
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 need to whinge more! Be more Birmingham bin worker. But don't go on strike."
The Association of School and College Leaders has previously warned the burden on schools and teachers "has never been higher", with schools running food banks and supporting families with housing while public services "crumbled" around them.
Violence against girls
Phillips also warned of a "huge and worrying" rate of domestic and sexual violence within teenage relationships. She said schools will be a "huge part" of tackling violence against women and girls over the next decade.
"I don't think we saw that coming. I don't think enough preparation was done in how it feels to be a girl in society today," Phillips told the conference. "I think we all thought [...] that progress would just continue to be made. And in some regards that is absolutely the case. But the cohort of young people we could not do anywhere enough to prepare ourselves for the risk that was coming."
The minister emphasized that academic achievement means nothing if girls fall victim to violence. "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 said.
The National Crime Agency said earlier this year the risk to children from sexual abuse continues to increase. In 2024, around half of all police-reported child sexual abuse crimes were committed by 10 to 17 year olds. Around four in five sexual crimes against children are committed against girls.
Boys excluded from conversation
Responding to a delegate's question about boys expressing anxiety about "making mistakes or being unfairly judged", Phillips addressed the #MeToo movement's impact.
"So many things have changed because of that, but boys were not invited into that conversation," she said. "And that is not a deficit of the women doing it. It's a deficit of systems failure, this conversation not being one that was had with boys as well. And actually what it sounded like to them is: 'We think you're all rapists'."
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."
The Department for Education has introduced new guidance for relationships, sex, and health education. Students should be taught to recognize misogyny, understand consent, power inequalities in relationships, and how subcultures like "so-called 'involuntary celibates'" may influence sexual ethics.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse described child sexual abuse as an "epidemic" in its 2022 final report. The government is introducing a new mandatory duty to report child sexual abuse for those working with children, including teachers.
Note: This article was created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
