Teaching issues

I note that there is still an ongoing row about the Highers and the educational curriculum in general (Letters, 3 February).

Furthermore, I see that the government is hoping to ensure that all pupils can recite up to the 12 times table by age 11. When I was at school our class could recite the 12 times table at the age of six.

How standards have fallen over the past 80 years.

It’s the old maxim once again. “If it’s not broke don’t try to fix it.”

W Graham Watson

Spoutwells Drive

Scone

Part of the problem with the lack of supply teachers is down to the fact that the Educational Institute of Scotland meekly accepted that supply teachers would take a 55 per cent drop in their hourly rate in the autumn of 2011.

That’s when I finally packed it in. I taught from 1967 to 2006, 34 years as a principal teacher of chemistry, then as a supply teacher from 2007 to 2011.

JR McIvor

Carmelite Road

South Queensferry