HEADTEACHERS last night continued to hit back at the Prime Minister’s accusations that too many Oxfordshire schools were “coasting”.

David Cameron, also Witney MP, last week said there were many schools where results had flatlined, or had “not improved as much as they could have”.

But teachers and unions branded the statements “nonsense” and “insulting”.

Headteacher of King Alfred’s in Wantage, Simon Spiers, said: “I was disappointed and surprised that yet another senior politician, this time the Prime Minister, has made such sweeping statements about schools in Oxfordshire.”

Mr Spiers said there were “many, many” schools which were doing extremely well, and such negative comments would mislead parents.

He added: “He doesn’t balance it with positive comments for schools which are doing well and I think he paints a picture which is incorrect.”

Mr Cameron, who was speaking at a newly launched free school in Norwich on Friday, said more than 70 per cent of pupils in Burlington Danes Academy and Walworth Academy, both in deprived areas of London, got five A* to C grades including English and maths. But just 16 state schools across Surrey and Oxfordshire received better results.

NUT assistant secretary Gawain Little said: “The biggest thing here is how hypo-critical his comments are.

“Oxfordshire has one of the lowest amounts to spend per child and yet our results are expected to be just as good.

“To make these comments at a time when there are such huge cuts to education services is nonsense.”

* CHRIS Harris, the headteacher at Abingdon’s Larkmead School, explains why he believes the school is not coasting...

Larkmead has been on a journey of improvement over the past six years. We are a truly comprehensive school.

We have consistently outperformed the progress expected of the best 25 per cent of schools like our own in each of the last four years.

We have built a school that believes in itself and which has improved and is improving.

Our socio-economic context makes our progress all the more remarkable.

We are the most improved school in Oxfordshire, increasing our key performance indicator of five A* to C by 22 per cent, from 35 per cent to 57 per cent, and are one of the top 100 most improved schools in England and Wales.

Six years ago the school was shamed by an article in the Oxford Mail/Times stating that Larkmead School had the lowest attendance in Oxfordshire.

Last year we moved to the second highest attendance in Oxfordshire and our recent Ofsted report rated our attendance as outstanding.

Attendance is high because students enjoy coming to school, according to Ofsted and this led to being over-subscribed in two out of the past three years. Behaviour is excellent and all visitors and new staff comment on the warm atmosphere.

This school has not stood still nor coasted over a sustained period and a simplistic reliance on absolute not relative figures could, in the wrong hands, stunt the remarkable progress that the school is making. The future requires flexible thinking, well qualified young people with vision and values which our students have encapsulated in their own school strapline – “One community, individual minds, creating futures.