Letter: An E that is as good as three As

YOUR article, 'The public schools that come bottom' (30 August), implies that the quality of the education provided by a school can be measured by raw examination results, and that the low scores achieved by some schools necessarily mean that they provide poor value for money. This is plainly nonsense.

Some schools ought to be achieving high scores because they are highly selective academically. Others use different criteria in recruitment and achieve equal success with children who are less well-endowed academically. For some students, the achievement of one E grade at A-level is at least as commendable as three A grades for others.

League tables tell us more about entrance criteria than about the quality of teaching in a school.

R Payne

Bushey,

Hertfordshire