A WEEK ago, hundreds of homes around the island learned the educational future for their children as 11-plus results dropped through the letter box.

For the vast majority of families in the north of the island, that future will mean St Sampson’s High School.

Given its excellent facilities – unrivalled in any other school in the island – fine feeder schools and quality teachers, most parents will have been confident that their child has every chance of making the best of their school years.

It will have been disappointing for those families to learn today that, based purely on the number of staff at other high schools, St Sampson’s High has a distinct shortage of teachers.

Pro rata, the northern school is 14 short of La Mare de Carteret high school and 12 short of Beaucamps. That’s a big difference.

Of course, pupil-teacher ratios are not the be-all and end-all of education.

But it is undoubtedly easier to give each child the attention he or she needs and deserves if you have more staff.

And, crucially, discipline is easier to maintain if teachers are ever-present and visible.

Only two months ago we reported on one boy with a suspected broken nose who was isolated in St Sampson’s playground and beaten up by bullies. Head teacher Hazel Tetlaw reportedly told the mother it was the worst attack the school had ever had.

Unfortunately, while Miss Tetlaw is to be applauded for sticking up for her school and its pupils, it is hard to see her request to be brought up to the staffing levels of the two other high schools being granted.

Far more likely, given the current economic crisis, is a crackdown on staffing at La Mare and Les Beaucamps.

All of the schools would then be brought up to the 1:15 ratio which, Education will point out, is still better than the average in the UK.

But must it be front-line teachers who are sacrificed on the budgetary altar? Education would do well to remember its primary function and look first at its army of bureaucrats.