After an open letter from the education watchdog warned Reading Borough Council to take urgent action to improve the standards of many of the town’s schools, Cllr Meri O’Connell took issue with the ensuing debate.

Speaking at Tuesday’s full council meeting, the Liberal Democrat councillor said she wanted parents to remain confident that teachers were doing their best for Reading’s youngsters.

Cllr O’Connell said: “My children are in one of the schools that has received two 'requires improvement’ notices and I do not want parents to be frightened and think these schools are not serving their children well. These are teachers jumping through every possible hoop that they are being asked to by Ofsted. Ofsted is a useful tool but also a very blunt tool.”

As conversation at the meeting turned to the fall-out from Ofsted’s warning to the borough’s education leaders, there were heated exchanges over the capabilities of the current administration.

Conservative education spokesman Cllr Isobel Ballsdon attacked education leader Cllr John Ennis and the findings of the investigation into the state of Reading’s schools which took place last October.

She said: “The reality is that this is not about improving a good performance but rather fixing the basics for more than a quarter of primary school pupils and delivering these 3,500 children a decent education.”

However, Cllr Ennis remained adamant that despite budget cuts, the council was still committed to investing heavily into its education provision, including its school expansion programme.

He said: “We have seven schools right now in buildings already being expanded and they are not like some of the ones you will see up and down the country, these are real improvements. With free school meals for children we were given £380,000 by the Government but we needed £592,000 so this council put in £212,000 of capital to ensure all schools were ready to provide on this.”

Next Wednesday, leaders will discuss in more detail how the council will move forward after the report at the Adult Social Care, Children’s Services and Education Committee meeting.