AS A parent of one of the children who took part in the protest at St Joseph's, Darwen, I feel the need to reply to the recent anonymous letter.

This protest was not done on the spur of the moment by uneducated people, but after a lot of questions were raised following a poor junior department Ofsted report and the decision to merge years four and five was announced just two weeks before the end of the summer term, parents were quite rightly concerned that this was just a knee-jerk reaction.

Many parents of year five children tried to find out if this system would benefit children this year, but after asking the headteacher, governors, education department and diocese, nobody was willing to give us an answer.

I may not be as well educated as the author of the letter, but as a parent I feel I am entitled to query parts of my child's education.

This protest could have been avoided if some of the learned people mentioned above had stood up and answered questions in July, but we were only granted a meeting after the school was told of the possibility of the protest.

I would like to thank the author of the letter for informing us that much thought and discussion was put into making this decision because at the subsequent meeting we were still not given any answers.

Maybe the author could stand up sometime and also tell why this decision was made, who made it and most importantly of all, whether it has been taken purely for the benefit of my child and his classmates' education.

PAUL LILLEY, Radfield Ave, Darwen.