“Do we really need geography any more, now we have sat nav?” aked a pupil to a colleague.

Perhaps not quite an example of “from the mouths of babes”, but illustrative of a broader and vital point.

Teachers, parents and schools are often trying to motivate children by telling them what working now will do for them as an adult.

However, childhood is not just preparation for adulthood. Children and young people can achieve significant and meaningful things while still at school.

That is not to say that thinking about life beyond the school gates is unhelpful. We know that having developed goals and identified steps to achieve them help to increase our chances of success and give purpose to what would otherwise be the daily grind.

Too often young people meet the question “What would you like to do when you leave school?” with a reflexive and defensive “I don’t know” - that reaction is understandable, but also something to be addressed. Exploring and mapping out ambitions does not mean locking oneself into a career choice at 11.

They can adapt and change, and the student still benefits from the practice completed due to the motivation a now-abandoned objective once brought.

Thinking differently

However, humans aren’t great at delaying gratification, children in particular. Further, treating our schooldays as merely means to an end helps draw the question that perhaps irritates teachers more frequently than any other: “Will this be on the exam?”

That reductionist mindset also leads to queries such as “What’s the point of history if you aren’t going to be a historian?” and “What’s the point of sport, drama or music if you aren’t going to be a professional sportsperson, actor or musician?”, and of course, the sat nav comment.

Teachers need to persuade pupils, and sometimes parents - and sometimes, I am afraid to say, senior leadership teams - that they should think differently.

Pretty much every subject and activity offered by schools contains intrinsic benefit, regardless of whether there is a certificate at the end of it and regardless of whether alumnae are able to directly credit an increase in their earning potential to it when looking back through rheumy eyes years later.

Samveer Parris

The best illustration of this truth might be this: a pupil in my tutor group at Colfe’s School, London, Samveer Parris, became very seriously ill in October half term of Year 10.

He missed almost the entire year, but was determined to keep up and enter Year 11 with his friends, despite going through chemotherapy.

He persisted in his studies throughout sixth form and university, despite the reoccurrence of his cancer and the surgeries and further treatments he had to endure, and he secured fantastic examination results.

The standing ovation he received from pupils at prizegiving brought many of his teachers to tears. He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from Queen Mary University just three days before he died.

Samveer was very motivated by his ambition to work in motorsports, and got the opportunity to attend a Grand Prix in Monaco, and meet the drivers and engineers.

He got talking to Lewis Hamilton and, after a short while, the six-time Formula 1 world champion said to him: “Look, I am going to take your family’s contact details and I am going to give you mine, for when you’ve finished your degree.”

“This is not a favour. I’m listening to what you’ve gone through and what you’ve achieved, and I’m just thinking, ‘I want you on our team one day.’”

The fact that Samveer passed away before he was able to go on and do all the things that he had planned is heartbreaking.

But it in no way diminishes what he did accomplish in the time that he had. You could live for a hundred years and not experience a moment like the one (and this is key) he made for himself with Lewis Hamilton, or indeed the ovation at prizegiving.

Samveer moments

All children and young people have the potential to make things of lasting value and meaning happen for themselves, not just in their later adult lives, but now and in the very near future, whether it is improving in their toughest subject, enjoying a book or creating artwork, making the sports team or performing in a school production or concert.

Teachers and parents can help them to identify what these moments might be for them, commit them to paper and actively plan the practice, learning, preparation and development needed to make them happen.

And if we were going to give these moments a name, why not “Samveer moments”?

Andrew Foster is a former teacher. If you would also like to support Samveer’s family’s fundraising for St Christopher’s in his memory, go to https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/SomeoneSpecial/SamveerParris