Sir - We would like to congratulate all our pupils for their excellent results this year. They worked hard, they did their best and they achieved good grades, as they have done over a number of years.

It is therefore sad to have heard the media hype about A-Level results several days before the results themselves came out.

It is only in Britain that such a denigrating and negative attitude could be shown to an event which most other countries would be celebrating. Can you imagine the French not getting out their Champagne bottles and toasting their young people and their teachers for an even beter year than before?

Here we seem to have spent the last few days not celebrating excellence but finding ways to excuse it. We are told immediately that the examinations were too easy and that standards have been lowered. We do not believe this to be the truth.

Pupils at the top end who have three or four A's at A-Level deserve their moments of glory and an acknowledgement that they are intelligent and hard-working young people. If the university authorities or employers can't tell the difference between them, then they need to think of a creative and imaginative way of doing so and not just making A-Levels harder!

The preoccupation with A grades also belittles the achievement of others, who have done extremely well in their chosen subjects.

If we want more pupils to stay on in full-time education we must value their achievements at all levels.

Chris Bryan

Headteacher

St Birinus School

Didcot