SIR - Surely I'm not the only person to find it ironic the government has announced a £1 billion, ten-year strategy after being in power for a decade?

Sadly, the Children's Secretary's raft of proposals and initiatives sounded depressingly familiar.

With Mr Balls at the education helm, the government has clearly not lost its predilection for spin.

His declaration that he intends to make "our country the best place in the world to grow up" is mere rhetoric and reminiscent of a much earlier government's equally empty promise to make post-war Britain a land fit for heroes'.

Mr Balls' launch of a review of the primary curriculum is yet another expensive waste of time. A thorough and independent review of the primary curriculum has recently been completed by Professor Robin Alexander, of Cambridge University. Mr Balls would do us all a great favour if he read and noted the resultant report.

Any prescription for improvements in education should flow from the premise that independent educational professionals are far better placed than politicians to promote children's education and development.

That is why Britain's private schools are among the best in the world while, sadly, state schools are slipping down league tables.

John Tranmer, head teacher, Froebelian School, Clarence Road, Horsforth