So there are still dinosaurs like Alan Nunn around (Letters, January 31) who believe beating children into submission is the best way to make them behave.

He cited caning as an effective deterrent to bullying.

So a bigger, stronger person striking a smaller, weaker person with a piece of wood is going to show the person being hit that what he or she is doing is wrong? I don't think so.

I went to an all-boys' school in the early to mid-Seventies. I was a questioning rather than violent pupil but I was regularly beaten with a strap or cane for various minor misdemeanours. It did me no good and I didn't deserve it.

I had no respect for the teachers who assaulted me. I hated them then and I still do.

Corporal punishment is open to widespread abuse. I believe that some of the teachers who beat me actually got a kick out of it.

To suggest the morale of teachers is low because they are not allowed to beat their pupils is an insult to the profession.

Mr Nunn, your way has been tried and it does not work.

-Paul Hubbard, Saltdean, Brighton