IT is sad that John Adams, chair of the National Association of Governors and Managers, whom I greatly respect, should feel the need to attack me in his letter (TES, December 22).
His suggestion that I am “out of touch” with governor opinion is ludicrous. My 12 years of answering queries in The TES - now extended to direct e-mail and the website - have kept me in non-stop contact with governors. Apart from that I have never in 25 years stopped working with governors’ groups (in more than 100 education authorities to date), including several contracts for training. I have spoken face o face with at least 25,000 governors.
But John totally misunderstands my concerns. I welcome any sensible attempts to reduce paperwork. My worry is that the proposed changes would reduce governing bodies to talking shops; remove some of their strategic roles; give heads a degree of power which has never before been theirs; and by reintroducing grouped governors, destroy accountability.
I urge that we avoid being so naive on the workload issue to allow fair complaints to be used this way.
Joan Sallis 49 Lauderdale Road Richmond, Surrey
Agenda, Governors, 30
