So Anne Thrope is getting “steamed up” (TESS, 14 June) because “state kids are traipsing off to Auntie Flo’s salon to sweep up split ends”. Meanwhile, luckier kids are offered internships at Coutts bank.

Surely all work experience is valid - not just at Coutts? The importance of hygiene practice and how to keep a salon tidy are very relevant learning goals. The young people can also observe other jobs that they might find interesting.

If Ms Thrope is still not convinced, perhaps she should read the obituary published in The Times of 27 September 2007 for Howard Fugler, a boy I was at school with.

The article in question describes how Fugler left Brook House Comprehensive at the age of 15 to sweep and shampoo for Vidal Sassoon for eight hours a day. By the 1970s, he was styling for stars including Raquel Welch, Debbie Harry, Elizabeth Taylor and Diane Keaton.

Not bad work experience, was it?

Stewart Morris, Edgware, Middlesex.