As readers of The Herald will surely know, I spend a great deal of my time uncovering the problems and controversies in Scottish education, and I’m never short of work.

The list of broken promises is long, meaningful reform is blocked by political priorities, and I often say that our school system is far more hostile to far more children than we are really willing to acknowledge.

But lots of things can be true at once and, despite all of that, I don’t subscribe to the view that Scottish education has failed, or even that things are worse now than two to three decades ago when I was a pupil.

There’s plenty of room for improvement, but I think the majority of children enjoy excellent experiences in Scotland’s schools.

My son is one of them.

This article appears as part of the Lessons to Learn newsletter.

Back in August 2019, he started at Gartconner Primary School, although in some ways this was more of a continuation than a new beginning, as he had been attending the attached nursery for the previous two years, a decision we had made because it was council-run and, therefore, had an actual teacher working there.

Everyone involved in his early years education was fantastic, and by the time he moved on from nursery he was not only able to read, write, and do basic maths – he had also been taking part in lessons with primary one pupils, which he loved. We had never pushed for that sort of approach, but the people working with him recognised that it was something from........

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