* You report that ministers are “missing the mark as results stall” (TES, June 4). One reason for this is the way the statistics are collected by the Department for Education and Skills. Absentees for KS3 tests and presumably KS2 ones are treated as failures. We feel great frustration when we miss our targets because of absentees, and then are blamed.
At KS4 this is made worse by treating all pupils who are “old” for their year (after having come from overseas), as if they are total failures, since their results, which are often good, count for nothing.
Keith Atton The Piggott school Twyford Road, Berkshire