Most “normal” LEAs would regard a high school with under 600 pupils as unable to deliver the national curriculum, without costly extra support to provide more teachers than the normal per-pupil funding formula would allow.

How can the Funding Agency for Schools possibly justify approval for the Seventh-day Adventist high school, which seems to have fewer than 150 secondary-age pupils?

The issue must not be complicated by the racereligion factor. With numbers on roll as low as that, many urban Church of England primary schools have had to amalgamate with county schools. A secondary school of that size could only be justified in some remote rural areas, or in the remote alternative universe of the FAS where the political job is to promote grant-maintained schools even when it makes no educational or financial sense.

The Rev S Parish 1A Fitzherbert Street, Warrington.