The article “Happier classrooms are formed at home” (July 2) is one of the most disturbing pieces of educational writing you have published for a while. The premise of almost every seemingly benign sentence is imbued with a fierce and overwhelming assumption that school attendance is a good thing.

Since when is school attendance the equivalent of an education? Schooling is an option in the UK - one among many for the education of healthy, well-adjusted and socially responsible children. Let’s shelve the “measures” to combat truancy, shall we? Let’s leave the parents alone to focus on their homes without ridiculous (and often wrong-headed) interference for the sole sake of school attendance. If their children truant, I would say something’s going right.

Helen Lees, Doctoral candidate, University of Birmingham.