In his attack on York schools (Letters, November 24), Ken Beavan misses the point. Whenever we are asked to comment on issues such as league tables, we always stress that such figures need to be looked at in context.

OFSTED reports on York schools regularly confirm the local education authority's view that York schools are good schools. It also looks at the whole school, puts its achievements in context and provides a good guide to parents and governors as to how the school is doing in a local and national context.

Of course, different schools have different results with the crude league tables which look only at the one issue and don't consider all the other different ways in which schools contribute to a child's education.

Most people acknowledge that the success of children in purely academic terms depends on a whole series of complex social factors but, as a local education authority, we continually encourage our schools to set themselves ambitious targets and these are being discussed or our next education development plan.

We will continue to work strenuously with our schools to enable them to achieve their very best for their pupils.

But we are very confident that all our schools can offer the children attending them the opportunity to achieve the very best.

Coun Janet Looker,

Executive member for education,

City of York Council,

St Leonard's Place,

York.

Updated: 09:58 Wednesday, December 19, 2001