LETTER : Classroom `trench warfare'

Sir: I read with concern your articles about plans to reduce the number of hours of school work (9 February).

Comparisons of size of class/number of school hours between different countries has shown that number of school hours is a better predictor of academic success than class size. For example, Japan has large class sizes but works almost twice the number of hours of school work than the UK. I do not believe that a pupil learns as much in one hour in a group of five as in seven hours in a group of 35. Yours faithfully,

John Pahl

London, SW9