DEBORAH Glass Woodin is right to question Cherwell School’s expansionist plans.
Moving schools under local democratic control into the commercialised education sector has many downsides and few proven benefits. The considerable financial costs alone are reason enough to be wary.
The remarkable salaries of some individuals working in academy chains were recently revealed. The chief executive of the Harris Federation chain of academies earned £375,000 in 2013-2014. The principal of the Swindon Academy received £165,000. The sad truth is that when people start calling themselves chief executive or executive principal they like to pay themselves salaries appropriate to their grandiose titles.
It is good that Lynn Knapp, headteacher at Windmill Primary School, has spoken out against the process of thoughtlessly turning successful local schools into academies. She points to the lack of educational benefits and the loss of autonomy for primaries swallowed up by academy chains.
I received an excellent primary education at Margaret Road School, Windmill’s predecessor, in the sixties. It was a time when such job titles as chief executive officer or executive headteacher were unknown in the Oxfordshire schools system, and I don’t think any of us children were any the worse for it.
CHRIS BREWER
McCabe Place
Oxford
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