What schools need

sir – There is much to applaud in Nick Timothy’s encomium (Comment, September 17) to the departed schools minister Nick Gibb. For 10 years he fought to raise academic standards for all, and for rigour in numeracy and literacy across schools.

Yet he also became a growing block to reform and creative thinking. Social mobility is in decline; employers are increasingly frustrated by the lack of broad skills among school leavers; the neglect of technology has come home to roost during the pandemic; and the failure to comprehend what the best school systems abroad are doing, not least in artificial intelligence, is no longer tenable.

So let’s celebrate a great warrior in education, but let’s also grasp exactly how quickly education policy now needs to evolve.

Sir Anthony Seldon

Bray, Berkshire