For your anonymous Kentish correspondent (Talkback, July 20), it’s all very well opposing “educational apartheid” for everyone else, but when push comes to shove the middle-class self preservation instinct kicks in and their own children go to a grammar school.

If the pupils at the local “high” school really are as stupid and as badly behaved as your correspondent makes out, then this would seem a sensible choice. I wonder why, given this state of affairs, it is so unreasonable to regard the relative intelligence and good behaviour of the grammar school pupils as virtues which deserve to be rewarded. The opportunity to make use of a learning environment free of stupid, badly behaved people would be a suitable reward, perhaps?

Andrew Wagstaff
Edgbaston,
Birmingham