The omens are good, although small and still tenuous. It appears ever more likely that Brexit will herald a decadal period of benign neglect of education which could solve the recruitment crisis, reduce pupil and staff anxiety and burnout and lead to a healthier, happier, more prosperous and more equal society.

As we settle in to the new term, we may begin to find ourselves pleasantly surprised by the neglect of politicians.

Yes, there was the headline-grabbing announcement that the solution was after all to be found in the 1950s: a few more grammar schools in the cultural ghettos of post-Brexit Britain will ensure the social mobility that eludes us.

It is almost as if the European Union had blocked us from having the schools we really wanted for all those years. Unshackled, we can now spend the very limited discretionary resources available on building these schools and hoping for the best.

But this controversy does not affect the actual daily lives of teachers and pupils in the way that previous interventions did. Then there was constant discussion of new plans, new guidance, new frameworks, new requirements, new curricula, new qualifications, new everything. 

Some of them have echoed into this the term just past: the disastrous Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 1 assessment roll outs, the move away from levels, the ubiquitous fear of the new GCSEs, the uprooting of all modular teaching in sixth forms. But these are mere reverberations; receding whispers from a forgettable past into a universe rolling forward.

Currently, everyone is busy with Brexit and long may that continue.

Like the performance of the Italian economy during periods of anarchy, education improves dramatically when left alone politically. People in schools begin to think about what they are doing rather than about what they are told must still be done.

These reflective thoughts are the seeds which will, if left unploughed and unattended by politicians, grow into strapping and fruitful trees of learning.

A period of financial neglect is also upon us and this is perhaps more difficult to convert into a gilded age, but, as long as the financial neglect is accompanied by a dearth of policy and political initiative, even our poverty can be converted into reflection, peace and yes, learning.

We must hope that the Brexit process will absorb literally every civil servant and every minute of parliamentary time, every second of cabinet discussion. The children of Britain would benefit greatly if we and they were left to get on with it at last.

Hans van Mourik Broekman is the principal of Liverpool College

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