Responsibility for badly-behaved students lies with the parents

She writes: "It takes time to grow into a responsible, domesticated adult." Hear, hear. So presumably she considers it a nonsense that such pre-adults (aka children) have been given the vote – and even more fatuously that certain politicians want to enable 16-year-olds to stand for elected office and therefore to legislate on how the rest of us live, despite increasing medical evidence showing that the human brain matures only in the mid-twenties. So reverting to a sensible 21 as the minimum age would mean the average first-time voter would be 23 or 24.

Moreover, with around 50 per cent in full-time education nowadays until their early twenties at least, such youths of both sexes (and no doubt all genders) are probably less mature than their predecessors in previous generations, who had the benefit of earning a living in the "real" world, rather than having their "lived experience" limited to school and college.

John Birkett, St Andrews.

Solution to our school problems

SOME problems are easier to solve than others. Both the Secret Teacher (The Herald, September 25) and Professor Brian Boyd (Letters, September 27) refer to the creation of “two types of Scottish secondary school”, presenting themselves as “authentics” and “sceptics” towards the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) and suggesting that this deprives some pupils in Scotland of the opportunity to fulfil their potential. The Secret Teacher envisages a “a very long and rocky road ahead”, perhaps opening more conflicts of opinion and more inconsistencies among secondary schools. There is certainly a problem.

One possible solution to the problem of schools taking inconsistent approaches towards the delivery of education in secondary schools would be to consult upon and compose a curriculum which sets out what needs to be taught and how it would be ascertained to what extent it had been taught successfully. There is a possible solution.

The absence of such a curriculum in Scotland has coincided with the emergence of the schism identified by the Secret Teacher and Prof Boyd and the prospect of a long and rocky road ahead and also with the plummeting of Scottish educational standards in international ranking.

Learning stuff is hard work as is achieving potential in any sphere of activity, but to ask a school pupil to learn stuff without telling them or their teachers what has to be learned seems to make the whole exercise unnecessarily difficult and probably deeply frustrating.

Michael Sheridan, Glasgow.

Read more: Stop bombarding our schools with politically inspired negativity

Council should buy hotel

HE fire at Ayr's Station Hotel was shocking and devastating ("Travel chaos as blaze hits Scots hotel", The Herald, September 26), but must not be viewed as fatal. Surely now is the time for South Ayrshire Council to issue a compulsory purchase order for the site and restore the building in partnership with Network Rail.

I call on our council leader, Councillor Martin Dowey, together with fellow councillors to take this bold action. With the clear view of SAVE Britain’s Heritage that saving the building is the way forward, and the proven expertise of local developers in saving another much-loved fire-damaged listed building, surely our much-loved Station Hotel can be raised from the ashes?

Lianne Hackett, Ayr.

Tracking the excuses

ONE of the excuses trotted out by the Prime Minister today for uncertainty surrounding the HS2 project was that Labour opposed the repeal of EU planning laws.

According to Statista, there waround 11,500 km of high-speed rail in operation across the EU in 2020. In the UK there was 113 km.

Doesn’t look like it’s the EU that has the planning problems.

Cameron Crawford, Rothesay.

Pricing policy does not work

LAWRENCE Gurney (Letters, September 28) refers to a BMJ report on minimum alcohol pricing (MUP) which, he states, says "the policy has reduced deaths directly caused by alcohol by 13.4% and related hospital admissions by 4.1%" as though that is some sort of proof MUP is working.

Had he taken the time to look at the National Records of Scotland he would have found that, since the inception of MUP in 2018, the number of alcohol-related deaths has increased. In no way do I suggest MUP was a causal factor in this (there are many reasons), but raising the price of alcohol will never, ever affect the consumption of any alcohol. You don't believe me? Just ask anyone who enjoys a drink.

James Simpson, Erskine.

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Catch-22 for armed police

RE the situation with armed police officers in the Met ("Met firearms coverage still down after row", The Herald, September 27): the police are in a Catch-22 position,they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

They are confronting situations that most people will never encounter in their lives or have any inkling how to deal with.

They have to make a split-second decision that could result in getting it wrong, and having to accept the consequences from the courts, the Independent Office for Police Conduct and then having to wait years before they are brought to court and dealt with.

It's no surprise then that a large number of firearms officers have decided that enough is enough and have handed in their weapons.

Neil Stewart, Balfron.

Life before Agnes & Co

WE are known to be a nation who fondly love talking about the weather but are things now carried to an excess, giving names to an approaching spell of wind and rain that may be that bit more excessive than we normally endure in our accepted climate? After all, extreme weather systems are not entirely unknown and have been so in ages past despite our now being informed that whatever is heading our way and its outcome as "not since records began".

I wonder what name could have been given to the storm of December 1879 that destroyed the first rail Tay Bridge?

Being of Angus stock and knowledgeable of its dialect I can well imagine it being referred to as a being a bit "scrowie" on that particular occasion.

John Macnab, Falkirk.