I wonder if I’m alone in finding your tribute (the second in the TES ) to Professor Brighouse fulsome and excessive (“Bye bye Birmingham”, TES Friday ). “As Birmingham’s chief education officer he has turned the city’s schooling ... on its head”. One would suppose that Brighouse has single-handedly triumphed over the authority’s disaster, like Errol Flynn (in the war film) against the Japanese.

By report Prof. Brighouse is a pleasant man who takes a personal interest in people and schools. The fact is, however, that he is not currently a teacher and his experience of teaching, neither wide nor deep, ended in 1966!

We seem to be in danger of losing sight of the fact that educational achievement is the achievement of teachers with their students - not of anything else. This swollen super-class of “leaders” and “managers” is unnecessary and (some might say) wholly dispensable.

Nigel Probert, Porthmadog, Gwynedd,nbsp;LL49 9NDnbsp;nbsp;nbsp;