Alan Parker of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities is clearly upset that grant-maintained schools have been successful and that it is hard to find a head who regrets having made the change (TES, Letters, October 14).
The most striking feature of his letter, though, is its tone. Writing about the 1,100 or so grant-maintained heads who are in charge of so many schools which feature in the guides to good state schools and in the published lists of best school results, he says with contempt that no one need lose sleep over “the whingeing of a few hundred self-interested headteachers”.
One of the many advantages we have experienced is that GM status has raised the professional status of teachers. They now have far more say in the running of the school.
Few other GM schools may have gone as far as this, but the tone of Mr Parker’s letter does suggest that any recent increased responsiveness by local education authorities to the opinions held within LEA schools arises more from a fear that those schools might seek GM status than because of a respect for the professional views of staff.
LESLIE BATHER
Head
Bishophalt School
Hillingdon, Uxbridge
