As usual, their letters are heavy on their ideological hatred of academies and light on what is actually best for local pupils.

To make it absolutely clear, the exclusion rate of academies is in line with the average rate of all equivalent schools, of 0.24 per cent, according to DCSF figures – that is a rate not a raw number.

Similarly, for those academies with results in both 2006 and 2007, the percentage, not numbers, of pupils achieving five A to C* grades increased by 8.7 points, more than three times the increase of 2.6 percentage points seen nationally.

The emerging evidence is that academies are achieving higher across a whole range of indicators and without wholesale vetting-out of their students.

I would happily discuss all this information and more with Mr Guy or Mr Heselden, but they have never approached me directly.

Instead, they appear only interested in disseminating their misinformation in the press.

I would also have been delighted to attend a public meeting. I like public meetings and organise many of my own.

However, the self-appointed "parents group" distributed flyers announcing my attendance without actually informing me or the other speakers' first, on a day when I had to be in Parliament, anyway.

I later received an apology, so why have these two now reneged on that?

Mr Heselden seems to think nothing happens during the parliamentary recess.

I apologise to him and other constituents for taking six days off for a family holiday last week.

I have just finished dealing with the 550 emails and several skyscrapers of post on my desk as a result.

This week, I have been at constituency events or in my office on every day, including Saturday and Sunday, and next week will be the same.

I will continue asking questions of ministers, the county council and the school all the time.

The first question I asked is when the King's Manor academy consultation actually begins, to which the answer is September, and parents were sent letters before the end of term, contrary to what Messrs Guy and Heselden assert.

Mr Guy is right that I have said that locally elected representatives, including myself, should be as available and responsive as possible.

On Saturdays throughout September, alongside my regular appointment surgeries, I will be out on the streets holding informal drop-in surgeries with my councillors in Southwick Square, at Shoreham farmers' market and at the Adur District Council housing office in Lancing.

I hope this is public enough for Messrs Guy and Heselden to come and debate on facts rather than scaremongering misinformation.

Tim Loughton MP
House of Commons

NOTE: All letters must include a name and address which can be withheld by request.

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