The headmaster has an important and crucial role as they must ensure that they are satisfied with the quality of teaching on offer. It’s up to them to employ and promote the right teachers to the right posts and therefore make their vision of success both achievable and achieved. A headteacher will always have in their mind an ideal for their school, a vision of how everything runs to defined methods, principles and practices that offer the best outcome for the children placed under their guidance and tutorledge as they pass from being a child to a young adult.

Ideally at school pupils would take full responsibility for their learning and parents would promote this, working with the school to do so to bring about the desired result. Pupils should know that learning involves risk taking and as Churchill famously said, “failure is not fatal it is the courage to continue that counts”. It is indeed an essential path to success. Pupils should be learning from their own mistakes, experience the consequences of their actions and develop an ability to cope and manage adversity on the own.

Teaching requires a variety of factors for a teacher to attain success. Commonly these can be regarded as having a deep subject knowledge coupled with the fact that they want to extend that knowledge beyond the absolute confines of the syllabus they are imparting through their teaching, reading and writing.

Above loving a particular subject, a good teacher must be an effective communicator and someone who will create a passion for that subject in their pupils. It’s extremely useful if an individual teacher can communicate equally well on a one-to-one basis as to a group. Notwithstanding the fact that a teacher knows their subject they should be good learners and looking to keep learning themselves. All subjects move forward with time, obviously the sciences as an example, but even history with its established chronology and facts is subject to new findings and interpretations. In the last issue of essence, the interview with Dan Snow is testament to that fact. Good teaching has always been a collaborative experience so that any pupil is encouraged to dig deeper and search wider, continuing to ask questions and therefore not be satisfied with the mundane and ordinary.

What goes on beyond the classroom is also important, the ability and willingness for teachers to coach a team, run a society or mentor student magazine contributors makes for a well-rounded individual whose enthusiasm will importantly rub off on their pupils. This co-curricular ability has, on numerous occasions, provided a breakthrough for pupils in particular subject previously deemed impossible to master. So when that particular teacher happens struggle alongside pupils in whatever activity the breakthrough comes, and the pupils moves on.

In this day and age, a teacher must also have a well-developed pastoral sensibility, in other words possess as much emotional intellect they have intellectual firepower. Teachers who are good at what they do empathise with all their pupils from the weakest to the strongest, the introverted and extroverted. Being able to coax out of youngsters their worries and concerns, hopes and fears does not come naturally to some but can be encouraged by the correct guidance and effective training. The best teachers are therefore likely to have more than one string to their bow and after all is that not what you would want for your child?

Parents should worry less about the particular curriculum offered and more about how it is delivered, so question the head, the teachers and the pupils themselves to see if that particular school can find your child’s sweet spot and develop it. This will then go a long way to provide your child with the best chance to leave school as a well-adjusted individual with a strong sense of themselves, proud of their abilities and knowledgeable about their shortcomings and weaknesses. They will be aware that through their ability to learn they will be able to continue improving, never relinquishing a sense of curiosity, not afraid to ask for help when required and have a strong sense of their place in today’s increasingly competitive society.

An education should produce a child who enjoys challenges, values friendships, is able to take risks without fear of failure, and on leaving school has discovered their talent and passions, but above all themselves.

Affording the fees
Let’s face it, school fees are quite a lump of cash. The Independent Schools Council advises that day school averages around £15k and boarding £30k a year. So, do the maths, multiply by seven, add trips and equipment, and the starting point is around £125k, and that’s assuming the child attends state primary school to commence their education.

What’s the best way to save? To start, set a realistic target for what needs to be paid and bear in mind over recent years school fees have outstripped inflation.

A simple premise is to start saving as soon as possible and get compound growth working for you. Remember two things, firstly interest rates aren’t going to do the trick, they’ve been poor and aren’t going to change in the near future. Secondly, investing in shares or any other assets carries risks along with the potential for larger gains. In the long run these should be better than cash, but this isn’t saving for a pension and the time frame is more limited.

For those who already have some savings or grandparents or family members willing to help, it may be worth exploring paying some of the fees in advance. Lifetime gifts to a certain level are free of tax. This, of course, assumes your child will be happy at the chosen school – not always a given.

For the early years, cash will be need and some of the fees may be payable from income. Overall, probably the best savings vehicle will be an ISA as any savings placed in one grow free of any tax. The allowance per person currently stands at £20k per year, so a couple could save £40k a year tax free.