LETTER : Comprehensives work when the teachers are up to it

I CAN assure N Gillott that comprehensives certainly do work. In Scotland all secondary education is fully comprehensive with no selective schools at all, and, indeed, with one exception, there are no opted- out schools in Scotland. And there is the crux of the matter. Comprehensive education will only work well if all schools are comprehensive; the bastardised English system which has allowed selective schooling to remain will not work.

With a school of sufficient size it is possible to provide enough teachers for all levels and for a very wide range of subjects. Also in minority subjects, particularly music, it is possible to provide itinerant teachers who go from school to school - difficult for a divided or opted-out system. In Scotland a higher proportion of children go on to university than from England, not in spite of but because of our fully comprehensive system.

A S Milton

Bieldside, Aberdeen