If, like Mark Bannister, I were living in Redhill Drive, rather than having to live in a rented flat in a large housing estate, no doubt I also would be in favour of proximity schooling.

Firm evidence, however, is now accumulating that it is the social class composition of a school which determines its educational achievement.

Experienced teachers, of course, have always known this The nodal-point model was, perhaps, at least an attempt to spread recruitment through all sections of the community.

Sooner or later, a sensible society will want its schools to help produce people able to mix smoothly, with nobody feeling socially superior or inferior. The only way this will come about is by ensuring all schools are microcosms of the whole society , a society that is egalitarian , united and contented because the differences within it are natural and personal rather than socially engendered a society which places consensus above confrontation and cooperation above conflict.

We must wait to see what Parliament makes of education when it debates the Education Bill later this month but I'm not holding my breath.

-R G Jenkins, Hove