SHE has been a thorn in the side of Governments and a passionate advocate for school improvement for five years but now Melinda Tilley is looking forward to a new stage in life.

Earlier this month she stepped down as Oxfordshire County Council cabinet member for education, ahead of quitting as a councillor in spring.

Her portfolio has been split in two, meaning she will stay in the cabinet with responsibility for children and family services while colleague Steve Harrod takes on the education job.

Mrs Tilley, who joined the county council in 2005, said it was time for her to move on.

She said: "I am going to be 73 in January, which is all very well but you have to be a councillor for four years and by then I would be 77.

"Do I really want to still be doing the job at that age?

"I am very pleased someone else has taken the job on."

In 2010 – the year before Mrs Tilley became cabinet member for education – Oxford was the worst performing part of England in reading, writing and maths.

Last year there was a remarkable turnaround as more than 90 per cent of children in reception, year one and year two gained Level 2+ in reading and maths, putting them above the national average.

Mrs Tilley put the success down largely to the Get Oxfordshire Reading Campaign, which 1,200 pupils took part in between 2012 and 2014.

The scheme was backed by the Oxford Mail, run by the National Literacy Trust (NLT) and funded by the county council and increased the average reading age of children who took part by 13 months on average.

Mrs Tilley said: "People told me it had all been tried before and it had all been done and would not make a difference, but by gosh it did.

"A lot of credit needs to go to the Oxford Mail and also to the schools for taking it up and running with it.

"It introduced a culture of reading and it had a knock-on effect on older pupils too.

"I am very proud of that."

Mrs Tilley said another main achievement was 'keeping the family of schools together' as more began to move away from council control and become academies.

She added that she was proud to have maintained a strong relationship with teaching unions, finding common ground despite some differences in political opinion.

The grandmother-of-five has been extremely critical of Government plans – since abandoned – to force all schools to become academies and free school meals for foundation stage pupils brought in by the coalition government.

She said: "They do some funny things, governments, no matter what party is in power.

"I have never been afraid to point that out from time to time, what would be the point if I didn't?"

"I still think free school meals for all five-to-seven-year-olds was a massive mistake.

"It has not led to any marked improvement.

"I still think when David Cameron said he wanted to make all schools become academies it was disgraceful."

Away from politics Mrs Tilley is a professional gemmologist and is married to Frank, a retired flight engineer who worked for Cathay Pacific airline.

She said she was looking forward to retirement and was hoping to go on a cruise along the west coast of Canada with Mr Tilley, as well as some other pursuits.

She said: "I would love to learn to ride a horse, so I might try that and I also want to learn Latin.

"There comes a time when you get older that you want to do these things.

"I will not miss being a councillor. I have had fun but I am ready to leave.

"What makes me very proud is that people have gone into a ballot box and ticked my name.

"It is a real, real privilege that people voted for me."