PARENTS, teachers and former governors of Oxford School have welcomed news that a trust will no longer fund an academy at the school.

Christian charity United Learning Trust has told the Government that it will not go ahead with a plan for a new academy project at the Glanville Road secondary school.

Oxfordshire County Council has indicated it will look for an alternative sponsor for the plan, which was revealed by the Oxford Mail in March.

But last night opponents of the plan called on the council to admit that its proposal to create an academy was wrong.

Amar Latif, a former Oxford School pupil who was replaced as a governor by the council earlier this month, said ULT’s withdrawal was fantastic news.

He added: “It does leave a question mark over the future, but there would have been more of a question mark had ULT stayed involved.

“The county council now needs to own up to the fact it got it wrong.”

Jeremy Spafford, from Rose Hill, whose daughter Dora is in Year 10 at the school, said: “One of the things that worried me was ULT’s involvement. I think they’ve done the right thing by pulling out. I also think parents should have the option of a school which isn’t run by the church.”

Gawain Little, president of the Oxfordshire branch of the National Union of Teachers, said: “Nobody wanted an academy in the first place, apart from the county council.

“What they should be doing now is going back to the drawing board, asking local people what they really want.

“They shouldn’t be desperately searching around for a sponsor to take on this proposal, which was ill thought out from the very beginning.”

ULT told the Oxford Mail it pulled out of the Oxford project following a disappointing Ofsted report into one of its academies in Sheffield.

Michael Waine, the county council’s cabinet member for school's improvement, said ULT continued to make strong progress at North Oxfordshire Academy, in Banbury, which replaced Drayton School in 2007.

He said Oxford School was “not proving to be the first choice of its community”, and added that he found it strange that having been recently given Government reassurances about ULT’s involvement in an academy, there had now been a U-turn.

He added: “The council will await promised advice from Government officials with regard to a potential new sponsor.”

A spokesman for Schools Secretary Ed Balls said that new sponsors would now be sought for the proposed academy in Oxford.

awilliams@oxfordmail.co.uk