Fear. The word itself strikes fear. It weakens and disables, takes away dignity and paralyses minds. It fills people with dread and excuses them from rational thought: thenbsp;“I was following orders” syndrome.

It’s a pitynbsp;our “leaders” haven’t noticed.

Fear is not the basis for a just and fair society. Unfortunately,nbsp;ournbsp;culture isnbsp;basednbsp;onnbsp;the fear of failure,nbsp;not reaching targets,nbsp;not achieving levels,nbsp;not topping league tables; of the brown envelope.

I sit among the stricken faces of Year 6nbsp;test victims and wonder at the mentality of a society that allows its children to be treated thus. Have we lost our minds? Has the rationale behind education become so lost in the mire of political hypocrisy that we no longer care about the quality of their lives?

People can bang on about bringing the creative spark back into the classroom as much as they like, but a system that is judged on how big the pile is, like so much dead meat, is a system debased, a system that has cheapened and soiled its own aspirations.

Who are you, Mr Blair, to do this to us? And to think I cheered the night you were first elected. Just remember, the man who walks the road lookingnbsp;over his shoulder willnbsp;fall into a hole. We need a change. The chiropractor’s bills are crippling me.

Martin Hammond,
Coventry