You would think that someone inside Powys County Council had the wit to learning something from their recent crushing defeat but apprently not. Dear Editor It was great to read in this week’s B&R (15 December) that Brecon High School had been removed from “special measures” by the education regulator, Estyn. This is very good news for staff, pupils, parents and the Brecon community and they should be warmly congratulated. However, isn’t it strange that Powys County Council, which wanted to close the school, is strangely silent, given how so many of the cabinet were not lost for words when the school went into “special measures.” We should not be surprised. When Gwernyfed HS had, its ranking moved by Estyn to the top flight It took eight weeks to drag an acknowledgement out of the local authority during the closure consultation. More recently the school has had three major accolades this term all achieved against the pressure of the closure threat by the authority: 1. The Welsh Government announced that Gwernyfed High School has been designated as one of several “Pioneer “secondary schools across Wales to help drive forward the plans for revamping education so that creativity is at the centre of all subjects, based on the recommendations of the Donaldson Report. 2. A joint initiative by the Welsh Government and the Arts Council appointed the deputy head of the arts faculty at Gwernyfed HS as one of their “Arts Champions” to go into schools in mid - Wales to work with teachers to develop and use creative techniques across all subjects and help them develop networks with local arts organisations. 3. The Institute of Physics, each year, chooses six teachers across the UK to be their “Teachers of the Year” and the Head of Science at Gwernyfed HS has been designated one of the six for 2016. Any other local authority would have a) reported it to cabinet and minuted congratulations to the school and b) issued a press release announcing this exciting development and publicly congratulating the school on this achievement, but not Powys CC. On 30 October I wrote to Cllr. Barry Thomas (Council Leader) asking if anyone had told his cabinet about these developments and if they had, asking when they intended to acknowledge these achievements? On 1 November I received a reply from Cllr Arwel Jones, Education Portfolio Holder in the Powys Cabinet which said: Thank you for informing me of the recent successes at Gwernyfed High school. I understand that these are all recent developments and as such the successes haven’t been shared widely as yet. I will be writing to the School personally very shortly to congratulate them on the achievements. On the 13 December as no such communication had arrived at the school I wrote again, pointing out it was six weeks since a letter of congratulations had been promised “shortly”, asking what his definition of shortly was and reminding him the school term would end on 16 December. Still nothing, has Cllr Jones left the country, fallen asleep, forgotten how to write or is he busy preparing another closure plan? What is it about this cabinets need to repeatedly shoot itself in the foot? Any competent body would recognise that as a matter of good management practice achievements should be acknowledged. Our schools, such as Brecon and Gwernyfed HS’s, and the council tax payers, deserve far better because at present achievements are occurring DESPITE the efforts of Powys County Council. John Fitzgerald Please circulate this widely and lets see if we can use our combined pressure to force the authority to behave appropriately.