I was intrigued to read in the Times a clever piece by Matthew Syed about the performance of hapless goalkeeper Loris Karius, who embarrassingly let in three goals during the Champions League final, allowing Real Madrid to beat Liverpool 3-1.

While most commentators have accused the keeper of losing focus and thus making howling errors, the journalist and former Olympian table-tennis player (and Commonwealth champion) reckons the opposite is true. So focused was Karius on following his instructions to spread the ball wide, Syed suggests, that he failed to observe six-foot striker Karim Benzema bearing down on him, and gifted Real Madrid a goal.

In support of his argument, Syed cites the example of armed police making an obvious and potentially fatal error, fortunately in training. Hearing shots around the corner, out of sight, they charge down a corridor, failing to notice (and even kicking out of the way) such hazards as pipe-bombs and other improvised explosive devices. So focused are they on intercepting the supposed gunman, they fail to remember the basic rule of observing any other hazards.

My friends will laugh at my assumption of deep knowledge of international football: my sporting ignorance is legendary. But I couldn’t help observing in Syed’s analysis an analogy for school leaders. How many times, after all, have I written about perverse incentives imposed on schools and their undesirable effect on children or families?

In the news at present, as every year, there is yet more discussion of SATs. Even now, these are billed by the government - and remember, the previous Labour government was as messianic about them as the current administration - as a useful opportunity for parents to see how their children are doing in core subjects, as well as a means of measuring both institutional and individual teacher performance.

Some schools, feeling the pressure to score highly, focus so strongly, Karius-like, on the sole aim of raising Sats performance levels that they sacrifice breadth of curriculum by adding booster classes and a host of other euphemisms for grinding kids through practice and revision.

Excessive concentration on the exams ignores the miserable Year 6 experience it creates; it also raises levels of pressure and stress in children at an early age when wishy-washy liberals like me think they should be enjoying a rich and varied curriculum and spending time on sport, art, drama and music.

Beware unexploded bombs

Witness also the travails of St Olave’s School last autumn, pilloried in the media when one of the country’s top-scoring state schools at A level was revealed to be excluding pupils who “underperformed” in Year 12. Arguably, laudable ambition was focused on so tightly that the school’s leadership and governors apparently overlooked the fall-out, inhumanity and hurt caused - until the story hit the press, at any rate.

This coming September will, I guess, see the usual round of uniform scandals. We’re often told how keen parents are on schools insisting on smart uniform: until, that is, their own child is sent home for breaking uniform regulations. The resulting resentment and anger is out of all proportion to the ostensibly praiseworthy aim of getting pupils to wear uniform, well, uniformly.

As school leaders know, the return to work from this half-term heralds a whirlwind of planning for the forthcoming academic year. As we devise yet another round of improvement strategies, let’s pause to recall the values that drive us, and remind ourselves why we are doing what we plan. And while we focus on those all-important goals and targets, watch out, like the police in the training programme, for the mines and unexploded bombs hidden in our path.

If we can succeed in doing so, the coming academic year will be easier for all of us.

Dr Bernard Trafford is a writer, educationalist and musician. He is a former headteacher of the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle, and past chair of HMC. He is currently interim headteacher of the Purcell School in Hertfordshire. He tweets @bernardtrafford