“UNLESS we encourage, unless we compel kids to learn, we have no right to expect them to be well behaved.

“I’m very much of the opinion that we are the professionals and they are the amateurs. It’s very much our job to do the enthusing; the inspirational stuff.

“The philosophy underpinning what we do here is that we’re one community. We have 41 languages and 43 communities but the one thing that matters is that you’re a child or a teacher of Drove.”

The results Nick Capstick has achieved since becoming head a dozen years ago are far out of the ordinary, but so are plenty of other things about this educator.

Most successful headteachers were adept pupils: Nick was asked to leave school without so much as sitting an O-Level. Most successful headteachers are appointed after a steady climb through the ranks: Nick has just four years’ classroom experience and a CV that includes stints as a dancer and an actor.

Then there was his time as a guitarist in a band called The Frantic Elevators. Its singer, a certain Mick Hucknall, would go on to do quite well for himself in another band, Simply Red.

Originally from St Austell in Cornwall, Nick is the son of a Royal Navy seaman and a dancer. The couple met while Nick’s mother was performing at a theatre in Bournemouth.

His dad’s job meant Nick spent his childhood in a variety of locations including Singapore. As a teenage pupil of Hengrove School in Bristol, he was asked to leave without taking any exams.

“I wouldn’t have wanted me in my school when I was a kid,” he said. “I don’t think I was a poor student but I was unruly.” If today’s Nick could go back in time to teach the teenaged version, how would he set about the job?

“I think what I’d try to do is what we try to do here, and that’s to inspire. The reason I got into acting and dancing was because there was a great teacher called Mr Mullen. He was the lever for me not going off the rails.”

He attended the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and by the early 1980s he was dancer-in-residence at the Northern College of Music in Manchester. He found he enjoyed helping young people reach their potential.

He also realised that professional performance was not for him. “It was about ambition not really fulfilling reality,” he said.

Admitted to Manchester University as a 22-year-old mature student, he graduated with a degree in English and education. A fellow trainee teacher was Mick Hucknall’s girlfriend, which is how Nick came to play guitar with The Frantic Elevators. He left because he felt his musical skills were limited, and opted instead for his first teaching position and a salary of £11,000.

“I sold my soul for £11,000 and I really haven’t looked back,” he said with a grin. “I love it.”

His career saw him teach first in Bury and then Stalybridge, initially in dance and drama and later as what was known as an advisory teacher for science and technology. His talents were spotted by the local authority and he was recruited as an educational consultant. He later spent a year with Leicester City Council before applying for his Swindon post.

As well as heading Drove Primary School and its associated children’s centre, he is co-executive head with Lauren Connor of the White Horse Federation, which is in ultimate charge not only of Drove but also the Mountford Manor, Tregoze, Moredon, Rodbourne Cheney and Nylands schools, and the forthcoming one at Croft.

“I would encourage anybody with a bit of spirit and passion to join the profession,” he said.

“I think it’s the lousiest job in the world if you see it as just a job, but it’s the best job in the world if you’re willing to be a professional.”