THE blinkered may feel nothing nice is ever said about councillors, but in Melinda Tilley we have someone committed to plain speaking and serving the community.

Yesterday’s Key Stage 2 results showed one in three children leaving the city’s primary schools do not have the English and maths skills they should.

Within these figures there is some real achievement at some of the county’s poorer performing schools.

A politician more interested in their own career would have deflected questioning yesterday to those, but not Mrs Tilley.

She frankly labelled the results rubbish.

This might put some noses out of joint but it demonstrates what we have called for in tackling our under-performing schools: leadership.

Similarly, we have the headteacher at Windale, a school that has not quite reached the Government’s target but has made huge strides on the evidence of these results.

She says there are social challenges but hits the key point – all our children, no matter what community they live in, deserve the best education so they can achieve their potential.

With the results achieved at some of our schools and this type of comment, we feel increasingly confident our education system is heading in the right direction.