Brighton and Hove City Council has asked the University of Brighton Academies Trust to plan a new secondary school for Brighton.

The trust is a new organisation, formed in November 2014.

It is not at all clear why this is the best organisation to develop a new school for the city.

Presumably there were talks between the council and the university at some time last year with a view to fixing this deal. Can we be told?

The trust’s website reveals its thinking on how it will support schools which come under its umbrella.

It will encourage teaching and learning to enable pupils to reach their academic potential.

Can they point to a school that does not want this? It will support academies for long-lasting improvement. But this is what local education authorities, such as the city council, do anyway.

It will place academies at the heart of the local community. But the academy programme is designed to separate schools from their local community. National politicians don’t trust local communities to run their own schools.

Although the new school for Brighton is described as a free school, it is really just another academy.

If you look at the constitutions of academy trusts you will see that they are top heavy with executive heads, directors of policy and managers of operations.

They are the sort of people who believe that, so long as they are running things, they can only be wonderful. In fact, the last report from the head of Ofsted showed that becoming an academy does not significantly improve outcomes.

The whole programme has been a complete red herring and an ideologically-driven waste of time and money.

The city council should have the guts to plan for a school within its own control. We will have a new government next month; the rules of the game are changing and the last thing the parents of Brighton and Hove need is yet another type of school added to the city’s mix.

David Sang

Hythe Road

Brighton