If a salesman was four-fifths of the way towards meeting his yearly targets five months ahead of schedule, this would be a truly startling performance.

That’s where the TDA is in meeting its teacher training recruitment targets for September, in April. So I was mystified by your story that “The Government is still not meeting its recruitment targets in priority subjects” (“Huge rise in recruits but key subjects still short”, April 10). Graduate teacher training registry data shows that at this early stage in the recruitment cycle, we have already recruited 81 per cent of our science target and 71 per cent of our maths target. Yet you managed to portray this as bad news - as if we should have met our September target halfway through the year.

Yes, the recession has contributed to the huge boon in teacher recruitment. But the TDA works hard to target suitable career changes. It is clearly paying off.

Graham Holley, Chief executive, Training and Development Agency for Schools.