When I arrived at Winchester in 2008 I could see the difference immediately.

In contrast to many institutions, apologetically trying to keep up with the zeitgeist, this was a school that knew what it stood for: intellectual inquiry and academic excellence with a confident and expansive perspective on the world; trust in the capacity of young people who were accordingly afforded a great deal of freedom; whole-hearted commitment to communal life balanced with respect for the individual.

Virtually every one of these characteristics is under pressure today.

I am a supporter of external examinations for many reasons. Objective accountability is a salutary ward against complacency, can be a useful catalyst for consolidating and deepening understanding (especially for the idle or over-confident!) and, in this day and age, is the worst way to ration access to sought-after university places except for all the other methods that have been tried.

This last purpose, however, has an ever‑stronger tendency to skew the learning. The A-level examination syllabus has never been more prescriptive, and the examiners never more punishing of deviation from the marking scheme, which is in turn based on ‘what every pupil should know on this topic’.

Woe betide a free-thinking boy or girl who unexpectedly challenges the premise of the question, or introduces an unanticipated layer of complexity to their answer!

Div, therefore, has never been more important, partly because of its free-flowing and cross-disciplinary nature, and especially because it is unexamined. Many schools attempt to introduce some kind of general‑knowledge-cum-inter-disciplinary short course into their curriculum, but our tradition of Div and its centrality to a Winchester education are unique. Again and again, OWs tell me that Div was one of the most important formative experiences of their schooling, fostering flexible habits of mind, unleashing inspirational (and often most unorthodox) dons, and developing first-class written and oral communication skills. It is a bulwark against the only vision of education that governments today are confident or willing to support: narrow, utilitarian and, frankly, boring.