I almost certainly would have been expelled from the Michaela Community School within a week. Like most of my so-called “boomer” generation, attending school I had my suspicions about "the beaks" – as teachers were called in the Beano comic – I excelled at “projects” and flunked tests, chattered incessantly on the back seats and was more likely to have my eyes on the appeals or fascinations of other wayward pupils than on the domineering pedagogue at the front of the class.

All the same, who can deny aspects of the philosophy of the Michaela school’s headmistress, Katharine Birbalsingh, nor the success of its application in practice? Children indeed require structures, rituals and restrictions; and where those are absent at home, there is a good case for their stronger reinforcement at school. Such reinforcement definitely does breed security and success.