Letter: School gimmicks

Sir: It takes less than a week in teaching to appreciate that only a minority of children are very intelligent. It is obvious that those who are will best flourish and realise their potential when educated among their peers and that those who teach them should be sympathetic and cultured.

The ethos of the majority of comprehensive schools is anti-elitist and anti-intellectual (a major source of bullying). Discriminating middle- class parents shun them for this reason.

When the Government's proposed experiment in the comprehensives fails, common sense and competition will restore the grammar schools.

P G ADDISON

Ipswich