This article is taken from the October 2022 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

How can it be nearly half term? I’ve only just got over the nightmare that is the summer holidays, and now that dark, hideously intense latter half of the autumn term is looming already.

Cue incessant pings of class WhatsApp groups re Christmas fair, Christmas cards by your child, mysteriously non-Christmassy Christmas show, Christmas volunteering (to show we aren’t evil private school bastards), Christmas gifts for teachers, etc.

Was this simply nose-amputation on a grand scale after Lyra was rejected by St Paul’s

The more urgent stress is whether we made a huge mistake in sending Lyra to the new school in Marylebone (so new that there’s currently no actual sixth form), and should have stuck to City or Channing. Was this simply nose-amputation on a grand scale after Lyra was rejected by St Paul’s, and I couldn’t face going for a Beta version of my Alma Mater? Because yes, as Will never tires of reminding me, going academically off-piste was “my idea”.

Case for the prosecution (i.e. we did make a mistake): the school offers circus training as an alternative to PE. Took ages to convince Will that this was not “circuit training” misspelled, while he reminisced about the marathon he did 15 years ago. I mean this is a senior school, not a sodding Montessori. The cute alternative shit needs to stop at some point right? I mean, I’m all for a bit of martial arts, even bloody mindfulness if it helps the teachers avoid a nervous breakdown, but trapeze lessons struck me as a massive, New Age red flag.

Case for the defence: my friend Miranda whose daughter has just started at a London girls’ day school and has morphed into an 18-year-old overnight and is never off her phone yada yada yada. Frankly I’ve been there with our oldest Minnie, but because she’s boarding I can fool myself that all that fresh Hampshire air outweighs the toxic influence of TikTok. Though it didn’t help when Miranda commented that Lyra’s school sounded “wonderfully woo woo”. What was I thinking? Why didn’t I just resign myself to South Hampstead and be done with it?

We can — and probably will — parachute her out at any point

So yeah, on balance we have potentially fucked up. Which, when you consider the life-impacting ramifications of The Wrong School, is pretty bloody terrifying. But, as Will would say (adorably unaware of Love Island) “it is what it is”. Which obviously it very much isn’t. We can — and probably will — parachute her out at any point. But since my therapist suggested this would be highly “destabilising” and “disempowering” (given Lyra actually likes it) the status quo must remain. Until Christmas, anyway. When I won’t be at all busy LOL.

As for Hector, the dyscalculia rumbles on, despite extra Kumon, tutoring and even a holiday maths camp for the poor sod. Will keeps wanging on about Richard Branson “breaking the mould”, forgetting that Branson is dyslexic.

Also, we’ve yet to see any evidence that Hector’s difficulty with times tables is balanced by some kind of anarchic creativity. Tried to break this gently to Will’s parents, while Hecky was on the Nintendo Switch and Will idiotically used the term “disruptive thinking”. Jargon comes depressingly naturally to him. Cue his ex-army dad acting aghast at why we would want a disruptive child. Vital they don’t hear about the circus training.

Speaking of jargon — why is everyone in education, actually everyone, everywhere, saying “cohort” all the time? When did “cohort” become a thing? What’s wrong with “year group”, or just “class”? Ignore me. I’m STILL angry about St Pauls’.