Letter: Two sets of rules for schools

Lynne Reid Banks
Sunday 23 January 1994 01:02 GMT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

READERS responding to my article on my granddaughter's schooling (Letters, 16 January) suggest that I said there were no good primary schools in this country. Of course there are. But it certainly isn't just Alice's that are not. I recently received a batch of letters about my children's books from 9- and 10- year-olds in north London. Most of them were writing at a six-year-old level - ill-formed print, no capitals, awful spelling, etc.

I don't see that writing properly and writing interestingly are mutually exclusive. Surely the techniques of writing are the tools whereby children can best express their thoughts. It's akin to the claim that if you teach children proper drawing and painting technique instead of just letting them daub and scribble, you are inhibiting them. This is absolute rubbish.

But the main point of my article was the question of whether government inspectors are using different standards to judge middle-class and working-class schools. None of your respondents addressed this.

Lynne Reid Banks

Beaminster, Dorset

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in