Perhaps, as the Scottish Parent Teacher Council says, we are a minority, even a very small minority, but I am another who feels that homework is important. It offers a means by which pupils learn responsibility for their own education and at best a route through which parents and school can develop a powerful partnership.

Secondary schools need to adopt the policies of some of our best primary schools, namely to turn homework into a course of study that runs parallel but independent of work done in class.

Set and returned on a weekly basis across all subjects, the weighting of time agreed and moderated by the year head, entered in a homework diary with columns for parents and teachers’ comments and completed on sheets in a homework folder, the homework course would become a valuable complement to classwork.

As the course was completed, the results would chart the pupil’s progress and reassure the anxious parent that their child was making progress.

David Hill Relugas Road, Edinburgh