Lessons for schools

SIR – You report (January 3) that grammar schools are educating the highest number of students in 20 years, with existing grammars increasing their entry size to meet demand. It is time for state secondary schools to fight back and provide the type of grammar-school education that parents clearly prefer.

State secondary schools can achieve this by streaming pupils at the age of 11. This will allow class sizes, teaching style and testing regimes to be more closely tailored to pupil ability.

If children in lower streams improve, they can move to a higher stream, thus removing the inflexibility of a one-off 11-plus test. Graham Latham

Holmfirth, West Yorkshire

SIR – As a current pupil of Lancaster Royal Grammar School (LRGS), I can attest to the merits of grammar schools and their power to drive social mobility.

LRGS has furnished me with an education I could never have afforded to access privately, something true of the vast majority of boys at my school.

A number of its notable alumni came from very modest beginnings, but LRGS pushed them to reach great heights. William Whewell, the son of a carpenter, went on to contribute significantly to the world of science.

Cecil Parkinson, the son of a railway worker, rose to become a minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government.

Sir Edward Frankland, the illegitimate child of a cabinet-maker, went on to forge important discoveries in the field of chemistry.

Sir Richard Owen, one of six children, founded the Natural History Museum and invented the word dinosaur.

It is clear that grammar schools give everyone, regardless of family wealth or status, the opportunity to improve their prospects. Theresa May should increase the number of them in Britain. Lachlan Rurlander

Lancaster

SIR – I received two Christmas cards on January 3, the latest of a least a dozen that have landed on the doormat since Christmas.

One card was dated December 15 – five days before the recommended last posting date. The rest bore no legible postmark or no postmark at all.

Is this a deliberate ploy by the Royal Mail to hide their inefficiency? William Pease

Southam, Warwickshire