Steve Chalke, the chief executive of Oasis Community Learning, says its education team is “highly qualified” and has the experience to manage a school successfully (“Oasis has ‘skills to run academies’”, Letters, TES, October 31).
Well I hope this experience, as manifested at the Oasis Academy Mayfield in Southampton (“Sponsor rebuked for pupil riot”, TES, October 24), will make Oasis listen in any future takeover to the professionals in post before making any decisions.
Parents and pupils value the continuity of known staff. It is now too late for Mayfield Academy to regain what it has lost, and it will have to start afresh. Oasis needs to show that it is successful in order to win more academy business. It should also admit when it has made mistakes, but it seems to me Oasis is incapable of doing that.
Peter Sopowski, National Union of Teachers Secretary, Southampton.