It is a tale of two city high schools: the Hewett School, and Sewell Park College.

Both have disappointing exams results, financial problems, have been in special measures since November, and are in the process of becoming academies, but Norfolk County Council is opposing the conversion of the Hewett, but not Sewell Park. Why?

Much of the difference lies in the process which led to this point.

For Sewell Park, an interim executive board, which the council appointed last summer, has been considering its future for months, and recently agreed the preferred sponsor with the DfE.

For the Hewett, the government appointed its own choice of interim governors – rejecting the council's nominees – and education minister Lord Nash stated at the outset, before they took up their posts, that he wanted the school to become an Inspiration Trust academy.

George Nobbs, council leader, said: 'I think the decision of Sewell Park is almost as hasty and almost as irrational [as the Hewett].

'We do not have, in my view, the solid legal grounds for suing the government for Sewell Park as is the case with Hewett, because with the Hewett, the minister has taken the decision already.'

There is one more similarity: both schools sit in key general election battlegrounds. The Hewett is in Norwich South; Sewell Park is in Norwich North.

While there has been a vocal public campaign against Hewett becoming an academy for months, there are only now signs a similar Sewell Park campaign is getting under way – with or without the county council's support.