I hesitate to interrupt Dale Bassett’s ruminations (“Schools’ best hope lies in real freedom”, 2 March) on what real freedom would look like, but here are two questions for Dale to answer. Does he believe that parents should continue to have an enforceable duty to send their children to school? If so, sufficient schools must have a duty to admit those children. Parents cannot have a duty to do something if schools are free to prevent them from doing it. And does Dale really believe that sites and buildings for new schools, when needed, appear without someone who has access to local population projections commissioning them? Such a belief verges on the delusional.

Sir Peter Newsam, Former chief schools adjudicator, Thornton Dale, Yorkshire.