Sir – Martin Sheldon (Letters, August 30) is quite right to expose “one of the iniquities of the academy system” in that they and free schools “are solely accountable to the Secretary of State” and so are under no obligation to release information locally, or anywhere publicly.
We are about to see the opening of Oxfordshire’s first free school and it would be churlish not to wish it well.
Yet at a time when local authority schools in Oxfordshire (as elsewhere) are smarting under the lash of reduced bugets, are suffering as a direct consequence of Michael Gove’s decision in the summer of 2010 to kill off school building programmes, are in some cases unable to offer children places in local schools, one must wonder why
state-funding/taxpayers’ money is being squandered on free schools which can, and will only, cater to a tiny fraction of pupils in Oxfordshire.
That dreadful cliché, a level playing-field, comes to mind. Or lack of it.
We are experiencing a dissolution of the state education system, at every level, which is leading not to a reformation but to a deformation, or a dislocation which is being pounded through at hurricane speed, with a destructive force which could sweep away generations of progress and achievement.
Yes, there has been progress and achievement over the last 50 years of education in the UK and Northern Ireland; and, yes, there can always be room (a vital amenity in short supply in many schools) for improvement, but not if divide and rule is the order of the day.
Bruce Ross-Smith, Headington
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