Katharine Birbalsingh

Biography

Katharine Birbalsingh CBE is a British teacher and education reformer who is the founder and head teacher of Michaela Community School, a free school established in 2014 in Wembley Park, London. Ideologically, she identifies as a small-c conservative. The daughter of an Indo-Guyanese academic, Birbalsingh was born in New Zealand and raised in Canada until she was 15 when her father began lecturing at the University of Warwick. She cultivated an interest in education when reading French and philosophy at New College, Oxford and, after graduating, went into teaching at state schools in south London. She began hosting a blog, To Miss with Love, in 2007 under the moniker Miss Snuffy and later offered her support to the education policies of the Conservative Party and the reforms made by Michael Gove during his tenure as Education Secretary. Birbalsingh is the author of two books, Singleholic (2009) and To Miss with Love (2011), and editor of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers: The Michaela Way (2016) and Michaela: The Power of Culture (2020). She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours. In October 2021, Birbalsingh was appointed chair of the Social Mobility Commission.