RECENT letters from Councillors Mary Clarkson (June 2) and John Howson (June 7) demonstrate how disconnected are both academies and free schools from the communities they are designed to serve.

The Swan Free School continues to swan off into heavy fog and mist, which, as Cllr Clarkson writes, is a particular problem for Marston parents “of both primary and secondary children (who) face long journeys across the city through lack of places locally”.

In short, school provision in Oxford has not been improved by the determination of central government to assert the ascendancy of (in the end all) schools severed from local government, about which Cllr Howson reflects over “high levels of recorded absences at St Gregory the Great School” and the impotence of the county council. 

So at the moment the Swan Free School is a chimera and academy chains are a muddle of executive ambition cut off from local roots.

Central government’s disdain for what used to be called LEAs is based on ill-informed prejudice and no appreciation of how important were the dedicated local education officers of the past.

As for the present, in 2012 Cllr Tilley and her cabinet colleagues voted their full support for academies and free schools. Cllr Tilley now appears to have her doubts, too late by miles.

Pity parents and children as they meander around traffic-burdened city and county in search of an education.

Bruce Ross-Smith

Bowness Avenue, Headington, Oxford