SIR - The story about excluded schoolgirl Jenna Hewlett (Worcester News, September 19) makes my hair stand on end at the sheer pettiness of the school's position.

The young lady sports a modest cut with a small amount of blonde streaking.

I have seen many adult professionals, and even TV presenters sporting a similar style.

Is Christopher Whitehead School aspiring to run a 17th century convent or a modern educational establishment?

They should focus on keeping out kids who behave badly and disrupt classrooms in order to ensure a better education for the majority who behave acceptably, and to enact rules that keep the children safe.

When institutions behave with this degree of defiant inflexibility they can cause otherwise co-operative pupils to turn against education.

I truly hope that the parent will stick to her guns and stand firm to have her child educated without obstruction and use whatever power or persuasion and procedures are available.

ANDREW BROWN, Worcester.