Sir, There is a way in which the advantages of comprehensive school education can be reconciled with those of choice and specialisation. It is to make the principal organisational break at about the age of 14, as is widely the case in Europe. This would have the following advantages. It would offer vocational and academic choices at an age when they can sensibly be made, support a broad education for all to mid-adolescence, concentrate the expertise of specialist teachers where it is most needed, remove the need for huge institutions, provide a more secure environment for younger pupils and a more adult environment for older ones, offer a more attractive and rewarding career for both generalist and specialist teachers, reduce the flight of the middle class to the independent sector and match the proposals of the Tomlinson report. Some of these advantages are already enjoyed in areas with sixth-form or tertiary colleges; but in general the 11 to 18 concept has dominated our thinking for far too long.
MARTIN FOSTER
Norwich