Earlier this year I made the decision to leave the teaching profession which I entered 30 years ago as an enthusiastic, young biologist who wanted to share his passion for all things biological with young people.

I’d had an inspirational university education in Durham with David Bellamy as my tutor and thought, perhaps misguidedly, that I had the ability to pass on that knowledge and interest to 11-18 year olds.

Looking back, I think I was quite successful, if I look at the number of boys and girls who went into medicine, the biosciences and a whole host of biology related jobs.

It was hard but hugely enjoyable work, formulating different pedagogical approaches, answering questions, dealing with the minutiae of school life, seeing young people think and develop into young adults.

As is the way of things, promotion came and for the last 10 years I have been a head teacher or in today’s parlance lead learner/facilitator or something of that ilk at Poole Grammar.

I fear that I may now be becoming the dinosaur that I hoped I would never develop into and, like them, face extinction as the values and focus of Michael Gove’s and Sir Michael Wilshaw’s educational world have now moved so far away from my own rationale for leading a school.

I must admit I have worked mainly in the rarefied atmosphere of some of the country’s leading independent schools along with grammar schools and so appreciate my view may be archaic or disconnected from that of the vast majority, but I still feel that the prime focus of a head teacher is to ensure that a young person is happy in him/herself and has high self-esteem so that s/he can become a successful learner who can then achieve at the highest level his/her potential will allow and so go on to become a positively contributing member of society.

That means knowing your pupils, knowing their background, seeing them as a person with a smile on their face.

Pupils are not data points on a spread sheet with the factory model of input, intervention, output as the means of knowing them, or indeed components of statistically flawed PISA international league tables.

This reductionist view has been promoted by governments of all persuasions and an inspection service which is not supportive but punitive where reference to data is the first and, in some cases, the only topic of conversation. I spend every Monday morning seeing boys who have had a birthday the previous week, finding out what makes them ‘tick’, what excites them, and then their life aspirations.

When you hear that a young man was taking part in the national ballroom dancing championships or trampolining at an international competition you hear their unbridled enthusiasm for life.

It’s also a way I can monitor from a pupil perspective what is going on in school to see if it tallies with other sources of information.

Though I would say to anyone considering teaching as a career, yes, do it; it is the most exhilarating yet frustrating profession you could enter, however, I feel it is now only the most resilient of graduates who will make the choice and thrive as they experience the brow beating from government and all of society for all of society’s ills.

Likewise, you have to have the courage to say NO to government /Ofsted pressures and see education for what it truly is: to equip young people for the 21st century with the skills, both academic and social, which will enable those young people to be fulfilled.

The unfair pressure that schools are under and by implication their staff led by a committed head teacher means that pupil outcomes become the holy grail and the chasing of grades through a range of arguably game playing strategies leads to pupils with that key benchmark in our society of 5 A*-C GCSE with English and Maths, but these young people have so much more to offer the world instead of being dulled by the pressure to perform.

If Mr Gove sees the Far East as a system to emulate, he should also appreciate the lack of creativity that can come with compliance and be wary of the high suicide rate amongst young people in those societies.

This country has been built on innovative thinkers who have not complied with the ‘system’ and long may that be so.

So as I retire from the educational landscape, as a maverick who never complied with the ‘system’ and start a new phase in my life I would implore teachers, school leaders and society to think very hard about what is important; is it 5A*-C GCSE or is it the living vitality of that young person and what they will become?