IN FRIDAY’S Oxford Mail we had the reflections on Oxfordshire schools of Bradley Simmons (Difference of opinion).

Mr Simmons, Ofsted’s south-east regional director, supposes that many Oxfordshire schools are failing to deal with the gap in attainment and achievement between “poorer children and their richer peers”.

He also dismisses the crisis of teacher recruitment as a causative factor: “It is not a reason for schools to just sit back and say ‘that is fine then isn’t it?’”.

Would Mr Simmons be good enough to say which schools around Oxfordshire are sitting back and saying that the difficulties experienced by the many children (possibly 31 per cent in Oxford city) who live in households which subsist below the Government’s poverty line are “fine”?

This is shoddy, shabby, and deeply offensive Ofsted shallow pronouncement; and Melinda Tilley is surely right to tell Mr Simmons that he does “not understand the problems faced locally, such as high living costs.”

Perhaps Mr Simmons would like to tell Oxford Mail readers how much he earns, what allowances be claims and gets, and what constructive help he and his colleagues, many of whom work for Tribal plc, a global money-making for profit educational consultancy, have to offer the poorest children and families of Oxfordshire.

BRUCE ROSS-SMITH
Bowness Avenue, Headington