SIR — Whilst I am loath to protract the Paddy Parnell concerns (Free Press June 24 and July 1), I feel I must respond to those readers who seek to support his actions. They have missed two very fundamental points. Mr Parnell, as a well-trained, respected and experienced teacher, is bound by his professional body - the General Teaching Council - to maintain and set standards of propriety and conduct "fitting of his profession".  His actions, in telling inflammatory, inappropriate and offensive racist jokes to impressionable 12- year-olds, falls way below these standards and are not to be condoned in any circumstances, let alone within an educational environment.  As a parent of young, impressionable children, I would expect and hope that their teachers, through their position of authority, influence and accountability, were setting the highest possible example to the children in their care.  My children will not hear any discriminatory words from the mouths of their parents and I would certainly not accept them from the mouth of their teacher! Secondly, rather than condemning and criticising Mr Bailey, the behaviour manager at the Middle School, for reporting the incident, we should be thanking and praising him for his commendable actions, which I am sure were not undertaken lightly.  I would suggest that his moral and ethical standards are perhaps of a much higher order than Mr Parnell's. Name and address supplied