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Good Morning. Through the window of this room in York, I can see our neighbourhood school. It’s the source, I confess, of a mischievous game I like to play on visitors. I invite them to guess the year of the school’s foundation, generously promising full marks for anything within a century. Very few, it turns out, get within a millennium, for St. Peter’s traces its beginnings to the year 627, when the Christian missionary monk Paulinus founded both Minster church and school, with a broad education reaching far beyond Bible knowledge to the liberal arts, from logic to astronomy. The British tradition of education has a very long history. In about 10 minutes time, normal for mid-August, but in a far from normal process, A-level results for school leavers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be released. Following the day-to-day uncertainties and challenges of recent months, and after all the enormous efforts teachers, pupils and parents have made, some may be anxious, some angry, about what today means for their future. Teachers may be worried about difficult conversations during the day. Is there something we can learn from the long reach of our educational story as we face today? A great educationalist, and also head teacher at St. Peters in the 8th century, may help us. Alcuin of York likened the relation of teacher and student to the creation of sparks from flint – an image of learning by which all can inspire each other. He wrote of the wonderful way in which learning grows, rather than withers, with age, and urged that knowledge on its own is not enough – we also need to learn wisdom: ‘The life [he writes] of those who have trained their youth in honest arts and have meditated in the law of the Lord day and night, becomes more learned with age, …, wiser by the lapse of time,’ Alcuin himself drew from an even older Biblical tradition that treasures education. A chapter in the Book of Proverbs, for example, begins: ‘Get wisdom, get understanding; … Do not forsake wisdom, … love her, and she will watch over you.’ So just as a wedding doesn’t make a marriage – rather the growing together through lifelong acts of listening and kindness – so results day doesn’t define a life of learning and work. It may be hard to look beyond today right now, especially for those who are disappointed, but on a bumpy journey it’s always a good idea to keep your eyes on the horizon. Perhaps the immediate concerns and conversations of today might bear in mind the lifelong story, that education launches, of knowledge and wisdom.