REPETITION is almost always tedious, yet it has to be stated again that the funding stresses and material shortfalls in Oxfordshire schools, and beyond, is scandalous (‘MP is told teaching posts may have to go as result of squeeze’: April 4).
As for Jon Gray, acting executive headteacher (why such a complex title?) of Cutteslowe and Wolvercote primary schools and, as such, child of the River Learning Trust, he might want to ask his parents in the Trust HQ at the Cherwell School why it’s fine for the Trust to be involved with the extremely costly (at least £25m) and disastrously sited Swan Free School in Old Marston when existing schools in “the family” are suffering disadvantage and deprivation?
Schools need air and space and so much more.
“Something rotten in the state of Denmark” comes to mind, not, of course, at personal individual level, yet the River Learning Trust is colluding in central government policies which will help no-one, rather foster imbalances and educational inequalities acrossOxfordshire.
So please, Mr Gray, talk to your Trust parents and ask them to persuade schools minister Nick Gibb to defend state education in Oxfordshire and stop the rot before it’s too late.
As for Nicola Blackwood, MP; good, speak up, but above all speak out against the corrosive Free School agenda which you have supported.
If necessary, rebel, dissent, scream, make Michael Gove have nightmares and cause current Secretary of State for Education, Justine Greening, to put children and families first and junk the destructive ideologies which will ruin us all.
BRUCE ROSS-SMITH Bowness Avenue, Headington
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