SIR: Could I please comment on recent letters concerning a bright schoolboy forfeiting his exam prospects because he choose to ignore the rules of the establishment which were pointed out to him.

The pride of my life are two wonderful daughters who attended schools where appearance was (we thought then) carried to extremes, but when they met me at the works gate my heart filled with pride.

And later their academic progress did the same.

One of these schools surprised us in later years by the gaggle of ragbags and bobtails leaving at 4.30 pm.

All lovely people doing their own thing! Society had won and discipline and education had lost.

No one is fighting to get into that particular school now.

By the same token this school which creates standards of appearance (ie haircuts) is embarrassed by having to turn good material away by lack of space, as I am well aware personally and sadly.

Misguided people will always try to chip away all the bastions of order and discipline but at the end of the day it is at the management where the buck stops - for the future of any establishment.

It is a thousand pities that this intelligent young man could not have bent his rules for the day regarding his hairdo, so avoiding this furore and enabling us all to sleep peacefully in our beds.

J F Flynn

Curzon Road, Heaton

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