Letter: Moving away from the classics

Sir: The National Curriculum Council's report (that the national curriculum is overloaded) will come as no surprise to classicists and other non-national curriculum specialists in state schools, who are being forcibly redeployed by the national curriculum away from their expertise to teach only official state-approved subjects (report, 19 January). If the Government's boasts of the diversity and choice available in our state schools, hollow enough as they are, are not to become a complete sham, it is urgent that the overloading of the Key Stage 3 syllabus (ages 11-14) be reduced, and quickly.

Yours etc,

PETER JONES

Senior Lecturer in Classics

The University,

Newcastle upon Tyne

20 January