As we drive up the tree-lined path to Gordonstoun boarding school in the Scottish Highlands, I’m feeling nervous. It’s a morning in early May and the sun is beating down on the bright green grass which stretches as far as the eye can see across the school campus. Two huge swans glide along on the glittering ornamental lake, and in front of me is a colossal, stone mansion. Although all of this looks like a scene from a genteel period drama, this academically non-selective school in the coastal region of Moray, between Aberdeenshire and Inverness, has a reputation for gruelling...