THE distressing news (“Teaching Fear For Poorly Children”, September 27) that Oxfordshire Hospital School is underfunded and so struggling to cope with rising numbers must raise questions about Oxfordshire funding for schools and children’s services.

As you point out in your leader, Oxfordshire headteachers have repeatedly said “that they simply do not have the money they need to give our children the highest quality of schooling”.

Yet considerable sums of money are being made available by the Education Funding Agency for the (likely) construction in Old Marston of the 1,260-pupil Swan Free School and a rebuilt Meadowbrook College, the need for the Swan based on the River Learning Trust’s assertion that The Cherwell School just up the road was oversubscribed, though by how many for 2016 is not stated on the school’s website(113 for 2015). This needs clarification.

It would be good to have figures for oversubscription at The Cherwell and at Oxford’s other secondaries, and then see how admissions can best be “tailored”. Meanwhile, Matthew Arnold School, which takes pupils from inside and outside Oxford, is currently consulting on expansion.

Also good to know how the proposed Swan School will relate to the Cherwell, now with 1,890 pupils, including 495 in the sixth form, with a published admission number of 270 for Years 7 to 11.

Will the Swan be a mirror image of The Cherwell? Or will the older school become selective and the younger school not?

Not surprisingly, many Oxford city parents are anxious about choices. Oxfordshire County Council still co-ordinates admissions, so help please!

BRUCE ROSS-SMITH
Bowness Avenue
Headington
Oxford