The Master of MCS TIM HANDS on his hopes for the forthcoming year

Buying an ice cream in Italy a fortnight ago, I was asked whether I was English, and then where from. Tuscans believe they speak the best Italian: they think an Oxford voice is the best English too.

So my answer caused sufficient pleasure that I thought I might be on my way to a complimentary extra scoop. But though I waited, it never came. Every city has an identity and output. In Portsmouth, where I was previously a head for 10 years, that output was either peace or war, depending on your view of the history of the Royal Navy.

In Oxford the identity is not just the accent. It chiefly revolves around knowledge and education.

This time of year is dominated by public exams — especially at Oxford, perhaps, and even more so this year. Educational correspondents ask about little else.

What are the issues and the likely answers?

Has this year’s marking at A-level been better? Probably. Will A-level reforms lead to better exams? Too soon to say. Is the pace of reform too hasty? Yes — indeed positively headlong.

Might the changes cause a fall in the number of pupils studying maths? Yes, unless the Government listens to teachers’ concerns.

Can the Government be successful in increasing the number of pupils studying languages? Yes, subject to the same proviso.

For many people, however, as a school year begins, these questions are not the most important questions; and, in a city with so outstanding a reputation for education, they should perhaps be placed in a particularly careful context.

Too many schools, and too many teachers, see schools as an end in themselves; whereas schools, properly understood, are emphatically only the means to an end. In the current exam-intensive debate, that paramount principle is too easily forgotten.

The most important issue with any pupil is not their results but their welfare. It is no use asking about their success in the exam hall if their life everywhere else is unhappy and if they have few hopes for the future.

So, each year I see every member of year 11 individually and ask them about their views generally, what they might like to be doing when they are 25, and how the school could help with getting them there. My father, who was head of three schools, including in the end one of the country’s largest comprehensives, did exactly the same. At last we are moving towards some general agreement that too little time is given in schools to advice on university admissions, and on careers.

That may not be the case in Oxford, but it is certainly the case in many other places. Visitors to MCS last year included Les Ebdon, director of the Office for Fair Access, and Sir John Holman, who is researching how we can produce more graduates in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths — subjects perceived as crucial to economic welfare).

Both experts are of one mind on the issue. Among the other things for which Oxford is famous is producing Prime Ministers. Three of the last five have been Oxford graduates, and each has made education a major part of their vision. So what’s my hope for the new school year? Not, to be sure, too much political attention to the single issue of public exams. Rather it would be a realisation from politicians of a new dual agenda: pastoral care, and attention to every child’s broad and lasting welfare.

That indeed would be a double scoop well worth waiting for.