Missing school: some cope better

Dear Sir,

I would like to comment on the letter by KW in last week's Chronicle where allowing children to miss school is discussed in the context of the coming stage of the Tour of Britain in Congleton.

Looking at it from a teacher's perspective the more a child attends school the more they are likely to benefit from the teaching.

It is a hard fact that some children cope better from missing a day's schooling than others and if all children miss the same day, lessons will be adapted.

Schools don't want to be seen to encourage missing days or lessons without being too dictatorial.

Perhaps some sort of assessment should be made as to the effect of the missing lessons on children and attempts made to mitigate it while not favouring them.

There is a distinction to be made between the indispensable parts of a lesson that there should be mechanisms to recover if missed and the background and supplementary information that is not as essential.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Peter Hirst

Middlewich