200. A Chat With Bridget Phillipson: The SEND White Paper, Maternity Pay & School Budgets

Two hundred episodes in, and somehow we ended up across the table from the person who runs the whole system. For the TSR 200th, Dylan and Hayden sit down with Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, and waste none of it on small talk.

First, the SEND white paper. The move from EHCPs to the new Individual Support Plans sounds tidy, but it could leave families without the right to appeal at a tribunal. What happens to children with complex needs when the funding does not follow?

Then the part that stings any new parent on staff. Civil servants get 26 weeks on full pay, teachers get eight. That opens up parental pay, a dropping birth rate, the quiet saving fewer pupils hand the Treasury, and whether the real answer is cutting class sizes rather than closing schools and cutting jobs.

And the big one. A projected 6.5% pay rise over three years that is not fully funded. We asked the Education Secretary directly where that money comes from, and who loses their job to pay for it.

Honest, occasionally tense, and exactly the conversation we wanted for episode 200.

Oh, and yes, we did ask her about Gemma Collins turning up at the DfE.

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