I am the ex-chairman of governors at St John Fisher School, and am appalled by the treatment the school and the headteacher Mary Mihovilovic have received over the past months.

I have known Mary as headteacher of St John Fisher School for 11 years in my capacity as a governor of the school and as chairman of governors for the last two years.

It has been a privilege to work with her, to know her and to be involved in the life of the school. There is always a warm welcome in the school, and each child is valued and known by name by Mary and all her staff .

The leadership of the school was rated "good" by Ofsted in November 2005 and the head was judged to provide "very good direction" and as recently as November 2007, the local authority did not identify any areas in the school that needed major support.

Since then, Ofsted (April 2008) has identified certain areas of concern – how can there be such a change in standards when the leadership of the school has remained the same?

After the OFSTED visit on April 29 to 30, the school has focused much time and attention on preparing an action plan to address areas of concern. The local authority, despite having an obligation to prepare its own action plan, has failed to provide the school with a copy, despite several requests from the school. Indeed, since the Ofsted visit 11 weeks ago, there has been no outside support or any visit from the local authority or diocese to assist the school.

I was therefore most surprised to read that the diocese and local authority state that they will both "continue to work with the school" (TheEvening Telegraph, July 17). It is ironic that Ofsted (April, 2008) identified that "working relationships between leaders of the school, local authority and diocese have broken down". It is my opinion that the school has done its utmost to try to engage both the local authority and the diocese. The new Interim Executive Board (IEB) was appointed on Monday, July 14. Letters regarding the removal of the board of governors were hand delivered to our homes in the early evening of Tuesday, July 15 by Peterborough City Council. No official notification had been sent to the school, leaving the headteacher, staff and pupils in a very vulnerable situation.

I understand that the first meeting of the new IEB was held on the evening of Tuesday, July 15. The school was not informed of, or invited to this meeting.

While I have no objection to the appointment of an IEB, I do have several grave concerns regarding its membership – one of them being that none of the new governors seem to have an active knowledge of the school, its and staff and pupils.