In a few months, Brexit will be upon us and Britain may no longer be part of the EU. When you couple this with the fast-approaching tsunami of artificial intelligence (AI), the need for radical thinking about English education is clear.

As Tes reported last week, education secretary Damian Hinds has come up with his own priorities. So has Labour with its National Education Service. Here is my own list to ensure we flourish and not fail in this new era.

1. Stop fiddling with exams, the curriculum and new school structures

The government must let changes embed and avoid the temptation to introduce grammar schools – there is no evidence that they are going to achieve anything other than provoke dissent and anger.

2. Talk up the profession

The education secretaries who have performed best since 1945 have worked with teachers, not against them. When speaking to staff, it's important to neither patronise nor denigrate them. Talking up the profession, spending time with teachers and showing them respect will help morale and recruitment.

3. Genuine autonomy must be given to schools 

The whole idea of the academy movement was to rescue schools from the dead hand of state control. Schools do best when heads are allowed to run their school with as much freedom as possible. The academy programme needs to be completed and made coherent. State schools need to become more like independent schools in having freedom – doing this will see fewer and fewer students attending independent schools.

4. Rethink leadership training 

The overemphasis on exams and the accountability system have made too many heads adopt a mechanical view of their job, and see it largely in terms of managing data rather than sensitively nurturing staff and students. Setting up national headship colleges around the country would develop transformative leaders. We need heads who act from the heart as well as the head, and know how to inspire students and teachers by their example – rather than thinking they can do the job by sitting in their study and going to meetings in their flashy cars, paid for by their overly high salaries. 

5. The supply, retention and training of teachers all need radical work 

Teaching is the most rewarding career there is. Too many who came into the profession with high ideals become disheartened by the lack of spirit and soul in schools, and by the drudgery of exam targets and data. Inspirational teacher training and professional development would help to ensure that teachers become ever more inspired when walking back into school at the end of each summer holiday.

6. Take AI far more seriously

The government has not understood how AI will transform the classroom or the way it will change the nature of employment. The very skills that the current exam system most accentuates are very ones that AI and algorithms will be able to replicate far more successfully. Jobs of the future will require far more creativity, imagination, problem-solving, teamwork, empathy, entrepreneurship and similar skills that can and must all be taught now.

AI is particularly skilful at teaching maths and science – the very subject areas that currently see some of the biggest shortages of school teachers. AI will compensate for many of the deficiencies in the current factory model of education. It will allow students to make progress at the stage of understanding in each and every subject, and not be held back by age. It will deal once and for all with the problem of teacher workload. It will also develop different sections of intelligence and capabilities to tailor learning to individual pupils, rather than the whole-class approach we currently see in the 'factory' model of schooling. 

7. Provide a fully rounded education

Independent school students benefit disproportionately from a more rounded education, with the full range of arts, music drama, and dance, as well as competitive sport, outdoor activities and leadership training. Why should these be largely the preserve of the already most privileged young people in the country? These rounded aspects of school are vital, above all, for those whose home background has the least social capital. Skills in these areas allow people to compete better for jobs, but also result in more fulfilling lives.

8. Start acting on character, resilience and wellbeing education

Character, resilience and wellbeing have been on the Department for Education agenda since Nicky Morgan was education secretary. Martin Seligman, from the University of Pennsylvania, has been saying for 20 years, along with his acolytes like Angela Duckworth, that the right interventions in schools can strengthen the ability of young people to face stress in life, can improve their ability to study, and ward off depression and other mental illnesses. We need to stop talking about it and start acting, as our best schools are doing.

9.  Give pupils a steady ladder to technical education

We need to create ladders to take students directly to T level and apprenticeships rather than through GCSE. Taking technical education seriously will make a substantial difference, and help align the skills that employers need with the work that is being undertaken in schools and colleges.

10. Maximise the talents and abilities of each child

When was it that an education secretary or chief inspector last gave us a vision for schools that aroused our imagination and empathy? The vision I want to hear is that every single child's life matters and that the task of every school is not just to maximise performance at GCSE, but to maximise the innate talents and abilities of each child, which will remain dormant unless schools lead them out (that is what the word 'education' means).

There is so much more that could be said. Above all, schools should stress the human in a time when machines will soon be doing the thinking. Students must be taught the importance of human, free thought and the difference between the digital and the real. Nature matters – some schools grow and eat their own food to highlight this to pupils and reconnect them to the flesh and blood of humanity. Each and every school should be harvesting genuine knowledge, understanding and wisdom. A diet of exam-based content is not healthy for our pupils. 

Sir Anthony Seldon is vice chancellor of the University of Buckingham and has published The Fourth Education Revolution (profits to the Jo Cox Foundation)