I refer to a recent advertisement celebrating the opening of a new sports facility at The Mount School. It contains the statement: "At GCSE level the pass rate made The Mount the top boarding school for girls in the north of England..."

Since there are very few girls' boarding schools in the north of England, such comparisons are trivial and odious. Nor do they tell the whole story; the discerning reader will notice that no such claim was made for A-level results.

I am not sure it is wise for The Mount, with only 22 per cent boarders (Financial Times, August 7), to invite comparison with other girls' boarding schools. I could counter with another piece of selective trivia, namely that this year at A-level, of all schools between Birmingham and Aberdeen which have more than 50 per cent boarders, Queen Margaret's was the top academic school. Such a statistic might be mildly interesting, but is no guarantee for next year or the year after.

Comparative and competitive advertising among Independent Schools is strongly discouraged and I feel that The Mount has infringed the spirit, if not the letter, of such a code.

Geoffrey A H Chapman,

Headmaster,

Queen Margaret's School,

Escrick Park, York.