One can but wish all at the Oxford Spires Academy well, but I would so prefer it if we could persuade our headteachers to abandon the self-defeating aspiration of “wanting to be the best school” (New academy pledges to be the best school in the city, Oxford Mail, January 7). Not only does this imply some desire for other schools to be second best but it is quite contrary to the essential spirit of cooperation, that is in fact needed across all our city schools, if the understandable desire of all parents to send their children to “the best” school is to be satisfied.
The recent evidence (November 2010) from the OECD on competition in education concludes “after two decades of empirical research, the most interesting question turns out to be: why are observed effects of market mechanisms on educational outcomes on the whole so small”?
Would that our headteachers weren’t so seduced by machismo attitudes and could attend more to what really might be in the best interests of all our young people.
Frank Newhofer, Southmoor Road, Oxford
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