I found your reporting of the secondary school GCSE results to be both unprofessional and lacking in understanding.

To suggest schools like Addington and Selhurst need to try harder shows a total lack of awareness of the difficulties these schools face in teaching very demanding pupils and children who do not have the academic talents of those in many other schools.

No performance tables, certainly not in their current form or in the value-added' format suggested for next year, can show the real work schools like these do.

In addition, any league table must, by implication, have a school at the bottom.

Are you suggesting that any school at the bottom of the tables must always do better without reference to that school's particular situation and their intake?

PAUL SMITH

Morley Road

Sanderstead

December 13, 2001 14:30