She advises an aspiring headteacher that hisher job will be “to interpret and make real the intentions articulated by the creative team in the Department for Education and Skills”.

In other words, headteachers are merely apparatchiks, whose job is not to use their professional judgement and experience but simply to carry out the wishes of Stephen and Derek Twigg, David Miliband and their attendant bureaucrats in the DfES.

If this is how an experienced head like Pat Denison now sees her job, is it any wonder that so few people want to be heads nowadays?

P Fareham 22 Hartslock Drive Abbey Wood London