Only grammar schools can ensure that able children thrive – regardless of their background

SIR – If the Conservatives want able children from all walks of life to fulfil their potential, grammar schools are key (report, September 9).

The Prime Minister has an opportunity to help the brightest to succeed – and to enable parents who want the best for their families to achieve this anywhere in Britain. Peter Booth Altrincham, Cheshire SIR – Of course the Government is right to seek a solution to the greatest challenges facing our schools today.

These include the achievement gap between the advantaged and the disadvantaged; the poor performance of white working-class children (especially boys); the growing number of children suffering from stress and anxiety; the increasing percentage of children who are overweight; and the difficulty for schools of recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers.

What the Government appears not to recognise is that these challenges are most acute in those parts of the country that have the selective system. Any expansion of grammar schools will exacerbate these problems.

The country needs swift agreement and action if we are to ensure that this divisive, misguided policy is never put into practice. We must not get distracted from securing high standards for all our young people. John Martin London SE8 SIR – I fail to see why competition in business is deemed desirable, and competition in sport is considered admirable, but academic competition is apparently something from which we must protect our children.

Children do not all have the same abilities. The important thing is to make the best of their various strengths – be they sporting, practical, artistic or academic. Different educational establishments can focus on children’s different skills, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. Jane Brown Caterham, Surrey SIR – What do Diane Abbott, John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn all have in common? A grammar school education.

Many Labour members howl with indignation at the kind of education from which they benefited. They claim choice is a step backwards.

Today’s education system is full of choice, in a way that it never was before. Children are individuals – but the comprehensive system did not cater for individuals.

Academies, free schools and faith schools enable parents to decide what is best for their children. If parents want grammar schools, why should they be prevented from having them? Cllr Susan Hall Leader, Harrow Conservative Group Harrow, Middlesex SIR – The mistake, when creating grammar schools, is to label pupils who don’t qualify as having failed. They have not. They have shown their skills lie elsewhere. These skills are equally, if not more, valuable.

We need superlative technical colleges, which celebrate practical skills, as well as grammars. Susan Scase Dale Abbey, Derbyshire SIR – When I was bringing up my three children, other mothers at their schools would say: “It’s because you’re a teacher that your kids are so clever.”

They thought that educating their children was exclusively the job of teachers at school, and would not have dreamt of buying workbooks to help their children at home, or of contributing to their school life. Pamela J Smith Truro, Cornwall

SIR – In my 1935 edition of the Gresham

Comprehensive English Dictionary, a grammar school is defined as one in which Latin and Greek are taught.

Do we have a sufficient number of teachers with this ability to staff all the proposed new grammar schools? Tony White Stevenage, Hertfordshire