I’VE just read the English Special (TES, May 25), and would like to congratulate Chris Firth for drawing attention to a major problem at key stage 3 in English. I’ve taught English in Bradford for the past 10 years - now at Fairfax upper school. The pupils do enjoy many aspects of studying Shakespeare. It is the testing of tis study in a formal exam that is a problem for them and their teachers. The Education Secretary should look at this.
Studying Shakespeare is fine and proper. Testing on it for 13-year-olds is ridiculous and damaging, and turns many off literature.
Ruckshana Bates-Patel 35 Milford Place Heaton,Yorkshire
