Your articles "The big question" (13 April, page 30) and "For whom the (school) bell tolls" (28 April, page 24) highlight the problem schools face today. We have a government keen to improve the facilities in which we deliver education and learning for our children, and in my case grandchildren, but we lack a coherent delivery strategy.
There exist in all local education authorities methods for delivering building programmes for schools through a much-used structure. Yes, some LEAs are better than others, but collectively they have the knowledge to deliver what teaching and learning environments require. This may be more than is possessed by the Atkins team "tipped to win the first phase of £236m school programme" (13 April, page 16). The article went on to state that Alsop's practice, which is doing the design "has never been commissioned for a secondary school before". Could this be one of the reasons why we have overspent on city academies?
Adrian Phillips, estates manager, Tendring Technology College
Seeking guidance from above? Tony Blair at St Francis of Assisi Academy in Liverpool, which opened in February
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