An educational administration that thinks it is acceptable for five-year-olds to have to travel four miles through one of the busiest parts of the UK’s road network to an unfamiliar school, and spend their days in an unfamiliar place among children they do not know, rather than to walk for five minutes on pleasant and safe footpaths to the local village school – where they have already attended pre-school and where all their friends are going – has got its priorities seriously muddled.

The assertion by Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet member for School Improvement Michael Waine (Oxford Mail, March 5) that “more than 95 per cent of applicants have received one of their top three choices at primary”, shows a level of complacency bordering on the criminal.

In areas with several primary schools within walking distance, the present policy, though undesirable, is at least comprehensible.

In a village like Lower Wolvercote, there is only one choice that makes sense – village children go to the village school.

The sooner we abandon the ‘choice’ dogma, and focus our energies on making sure that every school can, and does, provide high quality education for its local community, the better.

Meanwhile, can we see some sense from the council, in the shape of a temporary classroom and an extra teacher and teaching assistant at Wolvercote?

Stephen Lunn

Lecturer in primary education, and ex-primary teacher

Rosamund Road

Wolvercote

Oxford