This week my friend’s six-year-old daughter was given homework. Are parents clamouring for their six-year-olds to be given homework? I know those that aren’t, and I know teachers who abhor the practice. It’s yet another economic expedient by a government that cares nothing for children’s happiness nor for a healthy society. We will have the best-educated children in the world - even if it kills them. And what if the little mites don’t do the homework? Imposed homework is a burden young children can do without. It threatens to extend the distaste for school down to the primary sector.

AJ Marsden 9 Chester Drive, Ramsbottom Bury, Lancashire