How can the Office for Standards in Education, whose bland reports are about as interesting to read as the list of ingredients on the back of a jar of Marmite, blame teachers for producing jargon-ridden reports? What else are they supposed to do when they have to write dressed up in strait-jackets?

After a decade of cascading diktats on what has to be reported to whom, by when and in what terms by teachers who have worn their index-fingers to the bone writing plans, policies, reviews and reports until they hardly know their ATs from their DTs, is it surprising that reports to parents have become more vapid and guarded? Who can afford to risk omitting some legally required comment on a child’s ability to construct, consider and collate whatever it is that supposedly needs to be considered, constructed and collated under the national curriculum? Who dares risk a comment which could upset a parent and ruin the school’s public relations? Of course reports have become more bland, and some of the reasons might be related to OFSTED.

ALAN MILLARD 8 Medina Court Marine Parade West Lee on the Solent Hampshire