Letter: Active schooling

THE OFSTED inspectors either affected an ignorance or were pitifully ill-informed about the long history of Summerhill philosophy ("Summerhill did us good say ex-pupils", 30 May). So they announced that "the school has drifted into confusing educational freedom with the negative right not to be taught". If they had taken time read any of A S Neill's books they would have realised that he did not "drift" into the practice that the school still follows. Nor was "educational freedom" a paltry matter of negative rights: it was, in fact, an aspect of the positive right to self-regulation.

RAY HEMMINGS

Leicester