Reform UK council leader George Finch, 19, says sixth form is a ‘complete joke’

A teenage Reform UK council leader has called sixth form a “complete joke” and said it only helps young people develop a “woke mindset”.

George Finch, the 19-year-old leader of Warwickshire County Council, called for more hands-on courses at the Reform UK party conference in Birmingham.

“The education system is broken. I’m probably one of the closest to being in school (on this panel) and being in sixth forms and universities.

“It’s a joke. It’s a complete joke. Sixth forms you’re meant to develop your learning from GCSEs – you don’t develop anything.

“The only thing you do develop is a woke mindset.

“You’re not allowed to question what’s going on. You’re not allowed to question the way you think. You’re just told to think a certain way.

“So in our politics classes, it was why I always asked – it was very simple – why so accepting? Why are we so accepting of the things that are happening?”

Speaking at an event titled “The lost boys: a response to the crisis facing young men”, Mr Finch said Reform UK MP Lee Anderson, a former Conservative, visited Nuneaton just before the 2024 general election.

“And I stood up and asked him, ‘What is Reform going to do about this wave of wokeism that’s washing across our education establishments?'”

“And Reform’s policy on that opened my eyes, so I joined the next day, and then I gradually built through and then became a councillor, then council leader,” he said.

He said he felt there was a “brain drain” from small towns like Bedworth and Nuneaton in his Warwickshire patch and called for more practical teaching in engineering and design technology.

He spoke about his father who was a carpenter but became ill with sepsis so he had to stay home to look after him and his siblings.

“It’s kind of roles reversed in the sense, my mum went to work as a teaching assistant and my dad stayed at home looking after us.”

Ashfield MP Mr Anderson, who was also speaking on the panel, said Reform UK will root out teachers who are “brainwashing” children when asked about the possibility the Government could seek to make the curriculum more diverse.

“There are some teachers… in our schools who are brainwashing our kids into their way of thinking.

“When we get into power, we will root these teachers out, and hold them to account.”

He said they should be teaching children about the industrial revolution and the First and Second World Wars or the history of medicine in the UK  rather than “diversity nonsense”.