These included the need to promote the general welfare of all pupils as well as meet individual needs, the merits of an entitlement curriculum as opposed to an alternative curriculum and the desire for teachers to exercise professional auonomy while under pressure to work more collaboratively with other professions.

Professor Munn said the aims of an ethos-driven school system should be “to provide equality of opportunity for all to succeed, recognising that the playing-field is far from level, and to develop a sense of community where all feel valued and which values difference rather than uniformity”.