Basra, the open evenings and me

It seems only ten minutes ago that I was trying to wean my child off the breast, yet suddenly she is in year 6 and we are called upon to Choose a Secondary School by 22nd October.

We attended the open evening of the first school, a school so popular that rumours abound of money (bribes) exchanging hands to "get your child in there". Avowed atheists attend Church each and every Sunday for years on end only to accrue points for "getting their child into" this hallowed establishment.

On arrival, parking spaces were scarce as hordes of people parked in neighbouring streets, some several miles' walk away.

The Headteacher gave an inspiring speech and we were showed round by a group of young people who have the "smug look" that is so common amongst students at this school. I wonder if they have special lessons for new entrants, using mirrors and perhaps even video feedback to ensure that each and every pupil look upon the rest of Shaw with a facial expression which says, "I am better than you." All the staff have this smug look too.

We realised we did not the points for this school, being only occasional Godbotherers, so we turned to the local "bog standard comprehensive", my own alma mater, the vaudeville where I learned my pratfalls. Falling apart at every seam, the "temporary classrooms" where we learned in circa 1983 are now permanent fixtures.

It was now that the rumours began. Every parent who had lied and bribed their criminal ways to the full points for School Number One now smugly began to spread scandal about Bog Standard Comprehensive. As follows:

1. The whole of the current year 7 are scrotes and out of control (it turned out that this rumour-monger meant year 11, but being of subnormal intelligence, got them mixed up.)

2. Bullying is rife and the school refuse to anything about it.

3. The police have had to ask parents not to come into school and take the law into their own hands.

Having heard all this, I felt in need of a Valium. My imagination ran riot and I anxiously rang my ex-husband. "I think thats a bit of a exaggeration," he said. "It sounds more like Afghanistan than Blackshaw Lane."

My friend Sara asked if a bulletproof vest was on the required uniform list of our old school. We then began to imagine how times had changed in last 20 years. Guns, dogs and drugs were now a given, but in addition it seemed that the playgrounds were peppered with landmines and hand grenades flew where once we dared to make paper aeroplanes.

We imagined our old Physics teacher, (Taurus, with a rubber ear - a monkey chewed off his real one in the war), crawling across the path to the Science lab in full camouflage, face smeared with camouflage mud, dodging a hail of flak from rioting pupils.

The Science curriculum has been transformed by the War on Terror. The bunsen burners are gone to make way for bomb making lessons. Where once we were asked to bring in fruit salad ingredients, now parents have to shop at B and Q to buy bags of 5 cm nails for the Design and Technology lesson, making nail bombs. Our old school is now on a par with Basra, or so it seems.

The Open Evening was the opposite of inspiring. The headteacher read a long, dull speech in a monotone, not raising his eyes from his notes, even to say "thankyou for coming."

We kept this school in mind.

The next school we visited (feeling rather jaded by now) shall henceforth be known as the Fourth Reich. I will write more of this later.