This funding error will directly lead to a reduction in the number of teaching assistants, which will impact mostly on children with special educational needs (Cuts could reduce education in England to ‘bare bones’, headteachers say, 18 October). These teaching assistants will lose their jobs and may have to go on benefits, if not already on them, and have to visit food banks. This simple “funding error” has a very long tail.
Helen Beioley
Stroud, Gloucestershire
• Anita Chaudhuri is perhaps half right in her declaration that life is too short to read an email properly (How many years of my life will be spent writing – and ignoring – emails?, 18 October). If a message matters, it is worth remembering that phones are still capable of transmitting voices, providing better context, focus and nuance while reducing the chances of misunderstanding.
Geoff Reid
Bradford
• “Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.” The words of Edmund Burke could hardly be more tragically demonstrated than by recent events in the Middle East.
Elaine Luke
Fairlight, East Sussex
• Forgive me for showing my ignorance, but Pat Robson (Letters, 18 October) has me baffled. How else would you pronounce “one” other than to rhyme with “gone”? Maybe it’s a southern thing?
Kath Checkland
Hathersage, Derbyshire
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