Is it really any surprise that outstanding special schools are not included in the inspection exemption enjoyed by mainstream equivalents (“Outstanding is good enough - but only in the mainstream”, 21 October).

The Ofsted framework fails fundamentally to capture “the complex nature of their work” because it is designed to collect performance data to feed the insatiable appetite of the comparative league-table monster in our midst.

Once we construct data that measures pupils and their schools against narrow external standards and display it publically we inevitably sew the seeds of exclusion.

Ron Babbage, Headteacher, St John’s Special School and College, Bedford.