LIKE Robert M Goodman, “Academy schools not worthy of the name” (November 14), I believe that simply changing the name of a school will make no difference to its results.

However, if the opportunity of creating an academy is allied to the in-built raising of pupils’ expectations, combining excellent teaching with high levels of discipline, the results should speak for themselves.

Schools should be encouraging their pupils to aim for the highest common factor, not the lowest common denominator.

Scotland has had academies for centuries, an academy is usually the principal state school for a particular geographical area. It caters for a wide range of abilities, with the built-in expectation that all pupils, from whatever background, will work hard to achieve their best.

Perhaps those in charge of the new academies can use the best aspects of the established Scottish academy system to ensure that the local pupils caught up in the current changes get a better education than they, or anyone else, expected: a real academic experience.

Margaret J Gilmour, (former pupil at Dumfries Academy), Sutherland Road, Heaton