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William Blake is not an easy poet despite the apparent simplicity of his Songs of Innocence and Experience, a simplicity which has meant that most children hear one or two of these poems early on at school.

Like so many other poets, Blake strongly disliked institutions – the church (‘And priest in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys and desires), schools (‘The little ones spend the day, In sighing and dismay’) and apprenticeship (‘They clothed me in the clothes of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe’).

Despite that, and despite the fact that his religious views are decidedly not mainstream Christianity, I have often found myself using his poetry in assemblies, particularly one poem The Divine Image.

‘For Mercy has a human heart  Pity, a human face: And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress’.

This stanza has always seemed to capture what education needs. Learning the full capacity that each of us has within us to relate to others underpins everything.

Children learn this at the same time that they learn all the other things that lead to exam results, universities, jobs and so on.

This is why relationships are so important in schools.

Everyone has the capacity for doing good and wrong and children see adults behaving in both ways as well as other children.