There is something fundamental missing in education. I saw it first-hand a decade ago as a teacher in a challenging secondary school in East London. Every new teacher faces challenges: seating plans, behaviour management, coursework. But there seemed to be a much bigger problem. I was worried that my students struggled to listen to one another and articulate their ideas. It didn’t seem sustainable that I worried more about their coursework and deadlines than they did – or that the expectation was I would organise them. And what about creativity, or the ability to problem-solve?

Tom Ravenscroft has not only done his research – the sources in his book are wide and varied – but he also wears his learning lightly. The result is a very readable and convincing argument for the explicit teaching of skills.

Alan Turing is one of an illustrious cast of over-achievers whose school reports did little to hint at what was to come. His mathematics teacher suggests that he would do rather better if his work was “intelligible and legible”. There is little hint of the deep problem-solving skills that would make him a formidable code breaker in the Second World War.

Tom Ravenscroft is perhaps the most quietly passionate proponent of a “skills” curriculum in education today – and if that rings alarm bells, keep reading. He was just nine years old when he set up a little production line making greeting cards. His mum, a speech and language therapist, suggested he sell them at village fetes, which he did. At 11, he offered his services as a car washer around his town of Marlowe in Buckinghamshire, soon “rebranding as a car valet” to charge a bit more. In the same year, Ravenscroft’s father, an auditor with BP, helped him decide which secondary school to choose by listing his key criteria, such as “IT equipment” and showing him how to weight them mathematically. A five-mile run was treated with similar foresight, with goals worked backwards over several months.

While it may sound poetic, Enabling Enterprise was not born in a flash of inspiration. Rather it emerged from my desperate attempts as a naïve new business studies teacher to engage a class of challenging 14 and 15-year-olds. Through my time spent with this class I became increasingly aware that there were key elements missing in their prescribed business course. Namely, there was no practical element, few opportunities for students to develop their employability skills, and limited real world application.