My son has just finished his education at a public school. He obtained A grades at A-level in English and French, and Bs in Latin and history. He will not countenance resits, as he believes this is a legalised form of cheating. He would like to study English literature but the better universities want three A grades at A-level and he refuses to consider other places to study. He scored full marks in two of the A2 modules in English, and I think he has real talent. However, his school reports wereappalling(predictions of Cs and Ds). To be fair, he did not work that hard until right at the end when he discovered a passion for literature (from me, a nongraduate). Any ideas how he should proceed?

Dave Reynolds, Berkshire

I suggest he explains his moral stance regarding resitting A-levels in his Ucas application. His outstanding achievement in the two A2 modules should help, too.

Top universities usually require three As, but they can be open to persuasion. If I were an admissions tutor, I would take him like a shot. You should not have had to inspire that love of literature. Good job you did, though, isn’t it?

Our son scored an A at AS-level and acquired an enthusiasm for physics because he had an inspirational teacher. However, he is not being taught by the same teacher this year and his request to swap classes and be placed in said teacher’s set was refused. What should we do?

Betsey Lau-Robinson, London

If every student wanted to swap sets, the principal would have to take notice. I suggest you encourage a mini-rebellion. This assumes that the teacher your son now has is seriously dreary. If he is perfectly competent, but overshadowed by somebody who is genuinely inspirational, I have more sympathy with the school.

It is hard to find any qualified physics teacher these days, and inspirational teachers are not that common in any subject.

There was a question last week about the amount of reading that a teacher should set for six to eight-year-olds. Your answer has caused concern among parents here as it only reflects part of the picture. Schools have finite financial resources and so can only purchase a limited number of reading books at any given level. The class teacher needs to monitor each child’s progress in order to develop his or her reading skills fully. For this reason, a teacher will set a maximum number of pages each night to “pace” the pupil. If a child reads more than this, the teacher will soon run out of books at the appropriate level. I hope that this clarifies why teachers may appear to “ration” reading when in fact they are simply trying their best with limited resources to help the child.

Jane Bain, by e-mail

Thank you for this. Resources in schools are, indeed, finite, but per pupil, funding has increased 96% in real terms since 1997-8. Where has all this extra money gone if schools are short of reading books?

Chris Woodhead is a former chief inspector of schools and now chairman of the private schools group Cognita. If you have a question for him, please write to him c/o The Sunday Times, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1ST or e-mail him, with your name and address, at education-questions@sunday-times.co.uk

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