I first visited St James Senior Girls’ School four or five years ago and it struck me then as a very, very unusual school, one that in many ways exemplified the virtues – the things that I think are most important about education.

In a sense you are a bastion of civilisation at a time when the Dark ages are lapping all around you …

And what makes a good school?

Well you know that, it is teachers. You don’t have a good school without teachers. The best possible teachers, inspirational teachers, the kind of teachers you have.

Academic work is important, but education is far more than that academic work, and the profound values that inform everything that happens in this school are what ultimately makes the school such a great school.