IN a league of our own? Yes, students, teachers and parents all across the county deserve recognition for all their hard work in achieving good results as shown in the league tables recently published in the Hereford Times.

However, parents looking at the tables may well ask what one Hereford school is doing to get such an apparently dismal showing with dashes and zeros all over the place! I refer to the Hereford Waldorf School.

I hope I don't sound too defensive but the answer is simple: our students only take three GCSEs: maths, English literature and English language. But it is the reason behind this that needs to be appreciated.

For the last 21 years we have been offering an alternative system of education, one that values the whole person and educates for life not just for qualifications.

Easy phrases to say, I know, and we do agree it is important to educate the intellect but we see the human being not just being as 'head' but 'heart' and 'hands' too.

Our aim is to nurture our children on all levels of their being and to help them mature into confident adults, able to face the challenges ahead. League tables are a crude measuring tool when someone finds a way to indicate personal development, self-confidence, creatively and happiness then there might be some point in us being on them.

MICHAEL PHILLIPS

Chairman, governing body.