“The biggest shake-up of education since the 1944 Education Act” proclaims the media while Mr Gove loses no opportunity to explain that this will revitalise the economy and strengthen individuals to accept greater responsibility for themselves. We live, he and the Prime Minister tell us in most difficult times.

It is a month since the Election, and the new coalition government is beginning to shake itself out. Last summer the Initiative issued a Briefing Paper for Parliamentarians on the Design Faults at the Heart of English Education. Each MP had a copy and so shortly will all recently-elected Members.

It is nearly forty years ago that, as a newly appointed Head, an older colleague gave me a piece of priceless advice. “Divide the morning’s mail into two piles, the urgent and the important. Immediately deal with the important and leave the urgent until later in the day when you will probably find that somebody else has sorted it out.”

By using the life story of Peter Puget to illustrate the relationship of prepubescent learning to the nature of the adolescent brain, I may have lost interest of those readers with no affinity with the Pacific Northwest.

As the General Election edges closer two Reports, “Liberal Education and the National Curriculum” published by Civitas, and the University of Bristol’s Transition from Primary to Secondary School are likely to catch the attention of politicians.

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