THE comments made by Mr Weeldon, Headmaster of Altrincham Boys School were not only extremely offensive and patronising but also summed up very clearly everything that is wrong about selective secondary education in Trafford.

Despite denying allegations of discrimination against High School pupils wishing to study for A-levels, his comment "They would have to be able to cope with a package of three to four A levels. We don't have resits and we don't offer other qualifications" actually confirm that he does indeed have an extremely low opinion and low expectations of high school pupils.

Unfortunately when you have a system that labels children at eleven this is the inevitable outcome.

SOS, the pro-grammar lobby, would have us believe that these sort of attitudes do not exist, but sadly we all know that they do, and it is particularly worrying that these views are held by such a senior teacher.

No wonder so few of our able pupils want to carry on and study for A levels.

This is not a system to be proud of.

B J Bowdler, Hale

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.