Your “They said... we say” column (TES, August 3) claims we ignored our own research findings. I cannot agree. As the research and our press release identified, half of primary aged boys (49 per cent) want more male teachers; 61 per cent think it is important that boys and girls are taught by both males and females; three-quarters think it is good to have a mix of male and female teachers. Yet this is not the case in many schools just 16 per cent of primary teachers are male, according to government figures, and our research suggests 31 per cent of primaries have one male teacher or fewer.

You say “less than a third (of boys) want more male teachers”. Not so: 49 per cent want more teachers at their school who are men and 32 per cent want to be taught by a man. Both of these figures represent a significant proportion of pupils.

Peter Kellner of YouGov, who conducted the survey, said: “We believe the results reported in the press release accurately reflect the views of those we sampled.”

Giles Field

Head of media relations,

Training and Development Agency for Schools,

London SW1