Letter: England should follow Scotland on A-levels

I AGREE with your leader that the Government should look at a way to replace the narrow Advanced Level system with a wider one of the type proposed a few years ago in the Higginson Report.

Many pupils find it hard to choose only three subjects for A-level because, with the wide spread of subjects taught in an accessible manner at GCSE, they are not yet ready to specialise.

By providing wider courses at 16-19, with opportunities for emphasis within them, we would probably also see a huge reduction in the assumptions so often made about girls and science. This would increase the number of future science students emerging from mixed schools.

Susan Whitfield

Headmistress, Notting Hill

and Ealing High School