Letter: Schools are not laboratories

I REFER to your article "Schooldays will never be the same" (26 April). Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Education Select Committee, seems to believe in throwing out the rule book "and seeing what works". In a pre-term address to teachers in Barking and Dagenham, where I work, Ms Hodge used the word "experiment" in the same context.

The frequent changes in education in recent years show that politicians have scant regard for young people involved in the system. It is not good enough to try out new ideas without thorough research and small-scale pilot projects which do not risk handicapping a generation.

Margaret A Duffield

Billericay, Essex