A TEACHER from Peers School, Littlemore, appeared before scores of MPs at the Commons to tell them why he thought it should not become the city's first academy.

Ian Jones, who has worked at the Littlemore school for 27 years, spoke for the Oxfordshire Anti-Academy Alliance at the MPs' committee of inquiry into academies.

Hundreds of people gathered for the inquiry, which was run by a committee of MPs who are working to collate information on academies nationwide. Their findings are to be published over the summer.

If the plans for Peers get the go-ahead, the school would close next summer and reopen in September 2008 as the Oxford Academy, which would be sponsored by the Diocese of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University. A new school would be built on the Peers site, which would be complete by September 2010.

The Government would provide £25m towards the building of the school, while the sponsors would put £1.5m into a trust fund for educational activities at the academy.

But the plans have not been welcomed by all - as Mr Jones told MPs.

He told the inquiry the Oxfordshire AAA group feared the diocese might, in time, impose a Christian ethos on the academy which could lead to selection on religious grounds.

Mr Jones, negotiating officer for the Oxfordshire branch of the teaching union NASUWT, said: "The diocese may have given us assurances at this stage that this won't be the case, but that's all they've given - assurances. There are no cast-iron guarantees that there won't be selection criteria."

Mr Jones also raised concerns over the Peers buildings. He said: "We are constantly told that if an academy goes ahead there will be a multi-million-pound rebuild. It is acknowledged that there is great need and that funds can be found by Government.

"But if we don't agree to handing over Peers now, it will get nothing, which is atrocious. We either need it or we don't."

A public meeting last week was told that the proposed academy would not be a single religion school despite being run by the church.

The meeting also heard there would be no selection of children based on ability.