IN HER piece (‘Academy’s head wins top marks as schools join forces’, July 20) on Pegasus head Jill Hudson right, and the imminent conversion of Pegasus, Windale, and Orchard Meadow primaries to an academy cluster sponsored by the Dragon School, Family Links, and the Hamilton Trust, the Oxford Mail deduces that the three schools will “all effectively become new schools with a clean slate”.
Really? So the origins and histories of these schools should be forgotten? Past pupils, parents and staff who have contributed to their educational and community activities should now count for nothing?
This is surely not what the Oxford Mail intended. It is certainly at odds with what “outstanding head” Jill Hudson, who has been head of Pegasus since 1998, is quoted as saying.
Of course schools change but talk of “a clean slate” could be construed to mean that before August 1, 2013, Pegasus, Windale, and Orchard Meadow were irredeemable failures, which again cannot be what the Oxford Mail had in mind.
Consideration and respect for the past goes hand in hand with hopes for the future and endeavours in the present.
To date, the academies programme has a mixed record, so it must of course be fervently desired that this new cluster with its sponsors will offer every child, staff member and parent the best possible opportunities, educationally, socially, culturally and emotionally. It must be hoped.
BRUCE ROSS-SMITH Bowness Avenue Headington Oxford
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