Criticism In 2012, Schools Minister Nick Gibb said that “strong evidence has been emerging of grade inflation across subjects [in recent years]".[69] Katharine Birbalsingh wrote in 2011 of the problems she perceives in many community schools. She cites the impossibility of effective classroom management, bad teachers who cannot be dismissed, and government policies encouraging "soft" subjects. Birbalsingh has visited schools in Jamaica and India where pupils are desperate to gain the kind of education to which pupils in her own school (and their parents) were indifferent. She was a deputy head teacher in south London until she spoke at a Conservative Party conference in 2010 and was quickly sacked.[70] Frank Chalk, who taught at an inner-city school for ten years before resigning in frustration, made similar claims in 2006.[71]
Pupils claiming free school meals (2010)[72]
School type
Primary
Secondary
All
19.3%
15.2%
Church of England
13.1%
12.0%
Roman Catholic
16.3%
14.0%
Non-religious
21.5%
15.6%
Schools with fewer free school meal children than local postcode average (2010)[72]
