IF IAN Munro could see a little better he might be a search and rescue pilot. As a teenager the idea excited him because flying a helicopter was "cool", he liked spending time in the great outdoors and wanted to help people.

Unfortunately, the dream didn't last beyond his first eye test which revealed he would need glasses and therefore could not be a pilot.

But search and rescue's loss has become education's gain with 34-year-old Munro now installed as the youngest headteacher in the UK independent school sector after his recent appointment as rector of Kelvinside Academy, in Glasgow.

"I was told I couldn't be a pilot which was really disappointing at the time. They said I could be a winchman or another member of the crew, but that didn't appeal, so I turned back to a career in teaching which had been in my mind for ever," he said.

Growing up in Aberdeen with both parents and an aunt working as teachers it was perhaps inevitable Munro would end up in the classroom, although it was the influence of his grandmother, an English teacher, that he pays particular tribute to.

"I remember sitting at her house when I was very young and she would be sitting marking and would get me to look at the work and I remember just enjoying the feel of the books," he recalls.

"She would take me into the secondary school in the summer holidays and I remember meeting the janitors and visiting her classroom. So when I found out I couldn't fly a helicopter that helped me decide that teaching was for me."

Although Munro has fond memories of those visits to his grandmother's school there was something far more important in his life at that time – playing football.

A player with genuine potential it was all he wanted to do in primary school and, by the time he moved to Aberdeen's Hazlehead Academy, his parents had become concerned about the amount of time he was devoting to it.

"Football became quite a big thing in my life and when I moved to Hazlehead it was all I wanted to do. At that stage my parents thought of an independent school for me, but I really didn't want to go. I wanted to go with my friends to Hazlehead and my parents respected that.

"Because I was good at football I was accepted, but academically I wasn't being pushed in all classes and there was some ill-discipline so I saw people getting roughed up.

"When I got to the end of S2 my parents were worried about whether I was going to succeed in the classroom and an opportunity came up for both my parents to work in Edinburgh so we moved and I went to George Heriot's."

Arriving in the capital to attend one of its most prestigious private schools seemed like a death sentence to a young Munro and he let his parents know about it. But at Heriot's he met a group of pupils and staff who had a profound impact on the future direction of his life.

"I met people with totally different interests to me. I met people who were really into music and who cared about their studies. I am very open minded and that developed out of my time at Heriot's," he said.

"In time, by being surrounded by people with different interests, I learned to understand that it was fine to go rowing or go to physics club rather than playing football and I developed other interests."

Munro also credits Heriot's with his development as a more academically-minded individual with one teacher in particular helping shape his future path as a biology teacher as well as his wider philosophy on teaching.

"When I walked into the classroom of my biology teacher Gordon Stewart I experienced learning in a way I had never experienced before," he said.

"The traditional power relationship between teacher and pupil just wasn't there. Everyone sat around one big table and it was all about dialogue and discussion and it was fun and collaborative and that typified the value placed on learning at Heriot's.

"He was a huge influence on my life. He said teaching had never felt like a job and that has stuck with me to this day. Being in his class you could see that it was true. It was a way of life that he enjoyed."

Ironically, while it was a style of teaching that propelled him into studying biological science with zoology at Edinburgh University, it was also one which took the gloss off his experiences in higher education.

"I don't know if I loved university because I had been warmed up to this really high quality of teaching at Heriot's where they knew you and university was a lot more distant. I understand that is how universities work, but it's a shame because I felt detached.

"It is a real challenge for universities because you are taught in big groups by people who are being told they need to generate funding through their research. I became a little more disengaged."

After leaving university Munro completed teacher training at Edinburgh University's Moray House before working at Heriot's and then moving to Gordonstoun, in Moray, as head of biology. He "fell in love" with the school because of its commitment to an education which challenges pupils in an outdoor environment.

"All private schools talk about holistic education, but for some that means they run a badminton club on a Thursday and they dress it up as being better than the state sector," he said.

"But Gordonstoun's commitment to holistic education is total. The other thing that really hit me at Gordonstoun was this idea of being of service to others and how powerful that is."

Developing his teaching from what had inspired him in his own school days and marrying it to the philosophies of Gordonstoun, Munro successfully applied for the post as George Heriot's head of extra curricular activities, rolling out an internationalism and service programme to challenge pupils.

The highlight for him, and a perfect example of what he believes the essence of education should be about, was an expedition to the Middle East where pupils engaged with organisations from both sides of the conflict in Israel and Palestine.

"Those trips were awesome. It really opened the pupils' eyes to things that they had never seen before and I think open-mindedness and being outward looking is vital.

"The world faces lots of challenges and we should expose pupils to those challenges and let them understand them so the next generation can have a shot at fixing or improving the situation."

After a spell as deputy head of Shiplake College, in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, Munro was appointed as rector of Kelvinside last term.

Perhaps because of his experience being educated in both state and private schools, Munro is keen to help break down the traditional silos between the two sectors.

"There is a website in England which acts as a showcase for the work the independent sector does by helping the state sector and that is one way of looking at it, but I firmly believe the independent sector can learn just as much from the state sector as the other way around," he said.

"Independent schools have an obligation to think very carefully about the work they do with their neighbours because both sectors have lots to offer. At times there has been an attitude that private schools that have existed for more than a century always know what the right way is and I totally disagree with that."

While respecting the traditions of Kelvinside, he is also prepared to ask his school community difficult questions about the value placed on exam passes at a time when solutions to the problems of a fast changing and volatile world will come from resilience and mental agility rather than a list of qualifications.

"I sometimes look at exam results and ask myself what is means to get an A in a Higher exam. Does it mean a pupil has remembered some stuff and is that going to help them solve problems such as feeding an ever growing world population or the refugee crisis? I'm not sure that it will.

"I'm not saying we scrap subjects or exams, but I think we need something more than the challenge of qualifications and we need to question whether the right challenge for pupils is to get an A in a Higher. We place value in things we can measure and we get excited about it, but maybe we should think more about valuing the things that really matter."