Gavin Barwell, in his support of the two Harris Academies, forgets that taxpayers paid £10m's for new facilities and equipment, and that the academic ability of students there now is different from that in the past.

League Tables do not include the equally important Science and Technology results - although they do reveal the BTec/ "good GCSE" spin!

Last years' results showed Harris South Norwood had by far the biggest reduction in Croydon of percentage of five GCSE A to C including English/Maths from GCSE/Equivalent to GCSEs only - and Harris Purley the third biggest.

This year both reductions were in double figures - in fact of the 10 Harris Academies with exam results, 7 had reductions in the League Tables of between 10 per cent and 20 per cent for "good"  GCSEs!

As far as "improving" is concerned, should we be looking at schools' statistics improvements  - or the average percentage of all pupils' improvement from what they were expected to get?

In this connection, it is interesting to note that Haling Manor in spite of the upheaval of its final year still managed in 2009 to get a HIGHER improvement of pupils' grades than Harris Purley this year and therefore had been "transforming the life chances" of less academic pupils' lives, as well as the more academic ones, more then than Harris Purley has now!

V Hunter
South Croydon