Douglas Weir wrote in his article of June 22 about the merits of a primary teaching course to qualify its graduates to teach from ages 10 to 14. It is perhaps not coincidental that for a large number of years now the pre-schools have been operating single subject teaching in the nine to 13 age range very successfully. The high quality of that specialist teaching is often commented upon in inspection reports.

It is therefore unfortunate that the General Teaching Council is not able to recognise the merits of these teachers because they neither satisfy the demands of a cross-curricular approach in the primary school, and therefore cannot be registered, but neither are they deemed to teach children of a sufficient age to get secondary registration.

Maybe the time has come to introduce a third category of registration with the GTC for exactly those teachers who teach separate subjects at the eight to 13 age range.

M E Beale
Headmaster,
Craigclowan preparatory school,
Perthnbsp;