Education should be about more than just exams – important as the latter most certainly are. It should be about producing well-rounded and broadly educated individuals ready to make a wide contribution to society quite aside from academic achievement. It should be about the wider human being – about sports and interests, about sociability and friendships, about important subjects which may well not be part of any kind of exams. For that reason, I am always delighted to be asked to get involved with the political and current affairs aspects of our schools, and to encourage a non-examinable interest in the way the world is run.

I spent a couple of hours last week with Malmesbury School, who were hosting a Model United Nations event for their own Year 8 as well as Westonbirt and Sir William Romney’s School in Tetbury. The different teams skilfully advanced their arguments to the assembled UN, even acting out parts which they themselves would never agree with. I was particularly impressed, for example, by those playing the Islamic Republic of Iran. How refreshing it was to see a room full of 100 or so teenagers taking a keen interest in World affairs. ‘Jaw, Jaw, Jaw is better than War, War, War,’ as I reminded them Churchill had famously opined, and ‘jaw’ they duly did for the rest of the day.

Later that day I was in Bath carrying out some mock interviews for constituents who are Oxbridge candidates at King Edwards School. They had more A Levels at better grades than you and I can imagine.  But that is not enough for Oxbridge these days.  What the great Universities want is breadth of vision – evidence that the candidate can think, and think laterally; evidence that they have the ability to make a wider contribution to society than merely expertise in some narrow academic field.

This week, students from Royal Wootton Bassett came up to Westminster, seven of them to take part in an event about Afghanistan, including a symbolic march from Trafalgar Square to Parliament, a further 22 of them being half from Bassett, half shadowing them from schools in the United States. Some of them were the self-same students who gave Schools Minister Nick Gibb and me a hard time when we visited the school a couple of weeks ago. Once again these were very bright students, yet taking an interest in a wider world than they absolutely would have to for academic advancement.

How refreshing these events were, seeing teenagers getting involved in wider learning and experience beyond the narrow drudgery of A Levels and GCSEs; seeing them engage in politics in its widest possible meaning – considering how best to run the world which they are just about to join, beyond Westminster, most certainly well beyond Brussels. The Globe is now truly a tiny place, and we must lift our vision beyond the immediate horizon if we are to preserve it for future generations.

Teaching is a great profession, and we are fortunate with outstandingly good schools and teachers across this area. So many of them would wholly agree with me that it’s not just about teaching in its narrowest sense.  It’s about broadening minds, stretching thinking, rounding off students.  It’s not just teaching; it is education in its fullest sense, and those who achieve it for their students are truly reaching the highest calling possible.