A funny thing happens in a place like Oxford. The past, it seems, stands still. The buildings of its skyline were built so long ago that they never seem to have been built at all, but rather form a mountain range of unlit gothic caves, crocketed spire peaks and ranks of roosting gargoyles, beneath which sprawls a subterranean warren of quads and colleges – inhabited of course, by undergrads, indistinguishable from the average denizen of the Misty Mountains.

At Christ Church Cathedral School we believe that it is really important for all our pupils to be able to be happy, make progress and feel valued, whatever their strengths and difficulties. Of course, as a gently selective school, we do not have children with very significant Special Educational Needs. However, we have plenty who need a little more support than others do, and we are proud that we can give them the attention they need – probably more than in other schools which have a wider range of needs.

Raising his lunchtime eyes above the clatter and chatter of the dining table a boy may survey the serried names of old boys picked out in gold on the wooden boards around the walls of the dining hall: award-winners all. Some went with feathers in caps to Eton and Harrow, some to Radley and Winchester, some to St Edward’s, Abingdon and MCS. In a quarter of a century, muses the boy, my son may be sitting here proudly pointing out to his fellow lunchers his father’s name.