Letter: Gift of time

FRAN ABRAMS' article on schooling for the gifted child ('Gifted child goes to court', 5 December) failed to stress that parents - even the less well-off - can offer much to supplement basic primary schooling. Time is required, together with a stubborn streak and love for the progeny thus blessed.

A genuinely gifted child is super-absorbent. Our free libraries, museums and galleries should be well trodden. Activities must be geared to stretch the mind rather than merely entertain.

Parents must themselves be seen to read, heard to engage in objective discussion, understood to hold no truck with persistent whinging.

An early fostering of a disciplined set of thoughts, plus perhaps the hire of a little out-of- school tuition, will pave the way to scholarship or bursary. (See Public Schools' Handbook.)

To expect an almost bankrupt educational system to meet every exceptional need is not fair.

Diana Davenport

Great Rollright

Oxon