I can reassure Ken Cunningham (Letters, September 25) that I share his confidence in our headteacher colleagues’ abilities to lead coherently and deliver the ambitions in A Curriculum for Excellence.

I wish to clarify the point that my argument at the Selmas conference, which you reported on September 18, was that the Scottish education system imposes unnecessary barriers and limitations on headteachers in leading innovative and creative strategies in their schools beyond the core business of learning and teaching. The system itself promotes compliance to local authority and national structures.

I am clear that if ACfE is going to be transformational in its impact, it will be through the leadership of Scottish headteachers rather than any other group. Indeed, without this, it has no future.

Neal McGowan, headteacher, The Cherwell School, Oxford.