Is there a GCSE in pointless research? Give the Department for Education a grade 9 | Brief Letters

“Previous research published by the Department for Education (DfE) shows that pupils with high rates of absence get worse results overall than pupils who attend more often,” you report (Third of 15-year-olds persistently absent from school in England since September, 10 February). Why did the DfE waste its money, when any teacher could have told it?
John Crawshaw
Wakefield

With the country in the state it is, has anyone checked whether the ravens are still in the Tower of London? There’s been one in my garden in Wiltshire for the last two days – I have never seen one before – which may be trying to tell me something (or may just be partial to leftover cat food).
Mary Finch
Ditteridge, Wiltshire

We have just returned from a trip to London. Several times while travelling on the busy underground, people got up to offer us a seat. I still don’t know why, but perhaps Adrian Chiles does (Age has caught up with me – and it feels appalling, 8 February).
Jeanette Hamilton
Buxton, Derbyshire

Jim McLean takes mansplaining to another level by ignoring the substance of Rebecca Solnit’s article while using it as an excuse to talk about himself (Letters, 9 February).
John Roberts
London