Sir – Councillor Waine continues to insist through your pages that, despite being the most improved secondary school in Oxfordshire, “young people at Oxford School are not getting the best possible deal and they should be better provided for in the future”. Some (former) governors of the school have long recognised that the school faces cosmetic challenges from the ‘competitive’ advantage available to other city schools.

For more than a year we have argued that it is councillor Waine’s responsibility to ensure that the local authority apply due diligence to researching and displaying all the possible ‘deals’ that might be available for consultation with the local community; this he has singularly failed to do.

These same governors warned the local authority repeatedly over a 12-month period that the United Learning Trust was an inappropriate sponsor of an academy for the school; the response of the local authority was to remove these governors in order to replace them with their own foot soldiers. Our warnings have nowbeen found to be fully justified.

In October of last year you were good enough to publish my letter that pointed out that — “some attention might be given to the full financial implications for Oxfordshire County Council of the proposal to establish a 3-19 Academy on the Oxford School site — financial considerations are playing more of a part in these proposals than any principles concerned with learning, teaching and the welfare of the East Oxford community”.

I repeat that the council’s budgetary position is in reality the entire justification for the county council’s denigration of Oxford School and their desire to abdicate their responsibility for it.

In the light of the success of the school and the withdrawal of ULT it might be too much to ask councillor Waine to now ‘fall on his sword’, but at the least legitimate governance should be restored to the school so that proper and full investigation can be given to all the available options for the continued improvement of the school and its facilities. Without such full and prompt consideration I fear that the uncertainty surrounding the school will unnecessarily harm it and make recruitment of new pupils and a new headteacher increasingly difficult.

Frank Newhofer, Former chairman of governors of Oxford School