SIR - Mrs Thomas (Letters, March 12) raises the unmentionable subject of parental responsibility when schools show poor performance.

I have often thought that Ofsted should inspect a random group of family homes to provide a more balanced report based on the support that children are observed to have at home with their studies. (Can you imagine the parental protest?).

I also witness the dispiriting processions to and from Elgar College. I see far too many sexualised young girls with their little clutch bags, boys who look as if they are in the prison exercise yard already, little sign of having cold or wet weather clothing, but plenty of cigarettes; all the joys of modern British life are there.

It is all too easy to blame the school, its governors, the education authority and everyone else except the people who have primary responsibility for how their children turn out - yes, those parents who neither know nor care about what their children need.

DAVID STEWART, Worcester.