ACTIONS speak louder than words and that is certainly the case when it comes to the ailing Oxford Academy.

The school’s failures are a blot on the city’s education landscape and on the prospects of the pupils it is meant to prepare for adult life.

So it would be easy to dismiss the words of new chairman of governors John Putt today as yet more hot air.

But we should not. Mr Putt has done us all a service by being open, positive and brutally frank about what must be done to restore the Academy’s academic fortunes.

Some of his ideas will raise a few eyebrows, no doubt. Pupils and parents being treated as ‘customers’, for example.

However, the over-riding message is one of tackling problems head on and getting standards up.

If he fails, he will have made himself a hostage to fortune with his bold statements. But he has assembled a strong team of governors behind him, with more than a little help from central government and has a head in place who appears equally forthright and focussed on the job in hand.

They can clearly talk the talk and the signs look good for September, when it will be time to walk the walk.