‘Baby Shark’ Downing Street school cuts protest planned by MP

MP Jess Phillips planning to take thousands of pupils to Downing Street to sing the Baby Shark song in protest over cuts forcing schools to close early
12th March 2019, 5:12pm

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‘Baby Shark’ Downing Street school cuts protest planned by MP

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/baby-shark-downing-street-school-cuts-protest-planned-mp
Baby Shark Song

MP Jess Phillips is crowd-funding to take “thousands of kids” to the Treasury and sing the Baby Shark song in protest over cuts forcing schools to “close early”.

The Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley said she was planning to fund a “huge campaign” day, taking youngsters to Westminster to the offices of the Department for Education and the Treasury, as well as Downing Street.

Ms Phillips’ gofundme.com webpage had already reached more than £6,200 of its £10,000 target today less than 24 hours after it first launched. 


Read: School funding is a ‘national emergency’, MPs say

Need to know: What are the unions doing about funding?

Read: Parents in landmark SEND funding case to get day in court 


On the website, she said the Birmingham school her 10-year-old son Danny attends was being “forced to close early on Fridays because the school can no longer afford to stay open for a full week thanks to government cuts to education”.

Ms Phillips hit the headlines last week over a string of angry tweets to the prime minister and education secretary Damian hinds over the early closure of her son’s school, which she revealed is also planning to reduce support for children with special educational needs.

Ms Phillips added: “In Birmingham where I live there are 15 other schools in this position.

“Since I called this out, parents all over the country have been getting in touch to say that their kids are also being failed in this way.

“The Government has failed in the most basic job it has to provide schooling for all of our children five days a week.

“We intend to show them that we will not take this.

“Together with the Save Our Schools group, I am organising a huge campaign day where we will take thousands of children to Westminster on a Friday.

“At 1pm, the time our schools have to close, we will be leaving our children at the Department for Education, the Treasury and I will leave my son and some of his friends with special educational needs at Downing Street.”

She said: “It is the basic job of the Government to educate all of our children for five days per week, we intend to make sure they do this.

“If they will not do it in our local schools they can do it in their offices.”

She later tweeted: “We are crowdfunding to send them a message.

“Thousands of kids singing Baby Shark at the Chancellor of the Exchequer because he has failed to provide schools for them to do it in.”

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