Underwhelmed

She's going to school for the first time this week. It's a big moment in any child's life. She should be excited or terrified or awed. As her loving parent, I should be happy or weepy or anxious at the impending separation.

No such feelings are detectable in her or me. We are laid back, to the point that we keep forgetting when she is actually meant to start. Why? It's simple: she's mature enough to cope with school, and she has a choice about being there.

One parenting messageboard I frequent has numerous heartrending posts this week from anxious parents reassuring one another that their tiny four year olds will love school and be fine. It's natural but irrational, they say, for parents to feel sad and worried when their children start school. Next week, I know, there will be stories of bedwetting and tummyaches, disruptive behaviour at home and crying at the school gates. Again they will reassure each other: this is a natural stage; children need time to adjust; they'll soon be fine. The mantra "You're the parent. You know best. Trust your instincts" falls silent when the child reaches school age. The parent's feeling, formerly said to be instinct, is suddenly classed as irrational fear or the selfish desire to hold children smotheringly close. On the first day of school, parents will hide their tears because "I know he needs school."

The contrast with us is telling. Nine, not four. Likely to eat lunch in spite of distractions and unfavourite foods, in the knowledge that skipping it would make her crabby all afternoon. Able to find the toilets with ease, wipe her bottom thoroughly, do up her buttons most competently and wash her hands afterward. Confident enough to ask the teacher to explain the maths worksheet, and refuse to join in with meanness in the playground. Already in possession of a basic education which ensures she'll not be miles behind everyone else.

So what's left for a mum to worry about? That she won't like it? If she doesn't like it, she can come out of school once more. She's been happy and learning well at home. Problem solved.

Relaxed? I'm almost catatonic. Wake me up in time for school. Thursday, I think it is.

Learning in the holidays

Tonight The Kid was learning to make graphs of equations. Her interest had been caught by a graph she saw on a TV programme last week. She mentioned that on her trial day the teacher had been assessing her maths. She thought it silly to have been assessed nearly two months before she started school. "If the teacher sees that I can do something, then yes, that's useful for her to know," she said. "But if she sees that I CAN'T do something, that tells her absolutely NOTHING. Why bother? That's a total waste of time. They should test me in the autumn." I didn't quite follow.

"Two months," she said. "Anything can happen in two months. Since that day I went to school, I've finished learning the times tables. I understand about areas. I can make graphs of equations. I can add decimals - I used to only understand the ones that looked like money. I still don't understand infinity but at least I know I was wrong before - it isn't just a really big thing. I know how to multiply with negative numbers. I can calculate lots of things much better in my head." Now I could see where this was leading. We'd done more maths in the last two months than in the previous two years. Learning is often like that.

"So," she said, "What if the teacher had tested me on all that stuff in July? I wouldn't have known it. That doesn't mean I won't know it in September."

I tried to explain that when you go to school, people think you do all your learning there. It would make sense for a teacher to think that a child wouldn't learn in the holidays. And it is sort of true: if children are made to do maths when they don't want to, sometimes it puts them off. It can put them off so much that even when they have a bit of time and freedom in the school holidays, they still think maths is boring. Most schoolchildren don't choose to do maths in the holidays.

She looked down at her graph, y = x². She'd been very excited a minute earlier when she noticed the symmetry and had a feeling for why it must be symmetrical. "That won't happen to me, will it?" she asked in a small voice.

The penny begins to drop

My daughter has not fully realised just how much of her time school is going to take up. I'm quietly trying to discourage her from taking on TOO many new activities. One or two activities a day is very easy to fit into the diary of a home educated kid, but could mean stress for a schoolchild.

It's now school holidays. Yesterday she said she was looking forward to going swimming when the pools had got a bit quieter, so she and her friends can play together in peace and not have to queue for a shower. "How long until school starts?" she asked, "so we can swim when the pool isn't busy?" I reminded her that when school starts, she'll be starting with it. I saw her realise that there will be no more peaceful visits to the pool.

One of her friends told her about a couple of fun-sounding home ed trips his mum had booked him onto in the autumn. She asked me whether we could go too. "No," I said, "you'll be at school."

Last night she was deep into the details of her latest moneymaking scheme: sewing clothes for stuffed toys and selling them online. "Once I have my patterns done, I should be able to make two pairs of trousers an hour," she calculated. "If I work three hours a day, I'll be able to make six pairs a day. After paying for the materials I'll earn £12 a day, if I can sell them all." I said nothing. It seemed too unkind to point out that soon she won't HAVE three hours a day, not if she wants any kind of life outside sleep, school, and her new business venture. I guess she'll see that soon enough.

First day at school

She's done a trial day. The parents were friendly. The children seemed friendly. In fact, I think every single girl in the class came up to meet my daughter in the playground before school.

I took Small Fry (aged three) to play with some home educated friends in the park. They asked after The Kid, hoping she wouldn't be doing a very long stint at school. They wanted her as a regular playmate, and they knew they wouldn't be seeing much of her while she was enrolled in school.

Six hours later, out she bounced. She had done lots of fun things, she told me on the way home. The maths worksheet was far too easy but she could have a harder one next time. However, she did have a splitting headache - either from doing more close work than she's used to, or from the noise level. Children in her class are allowed to talk freely whenever the teacher isn't telling them something. I'm delighted to learn this, but hope it won't mean daily headaches.

The other problem: socialisation. You remember, the main reason children are supposed to benefit from school? It turns out that all those girls who'd been so eager to welcome her were members of different little groups. Each wanted to suck The Kid into her own faction. She said they'd been trying to turn her against the others. "You don't want to be friends with her; she's nasty" and "Well, you have to choose between us and them."

That preteen girl clique nonsense does happen among home educated children too, and in fact it has been an issue recently. I'm not pointing the finger at school, not entirely. But it's clear already that it is going to be far more intense in this closed group. Always before there has been an escape. We didn't ever HAVE to go to a particular home ed group, and if we did, when things heated up too much it was perfectly OK for my daughter to opt out by hanging around with younger or older children, or the grownups. Lately she has been seeing friends in ones or twos, which works better.

The social jockeying at school is a challenge from which The Kid will be unable to opt out. She reported that she had managed to avoid allying herself with any particular group YET. She doesn't think she can manage it indefinitely. Fortunately, the few boys in the class seemed nice. She tried chatting with some younger children, but was caught at this unwholesome activity: "What are you DOING, hanging out with Year Threes??" She isn't used to restricting her choice of friends to children who are exactly her age. This will take some getting used to.

Imagining a costume

My husband joked yet again about how easy things would be if only I would put the kids in school. I told him he had another think coming: two school runs a day, uniforms to buy, wash and iron, helping with homework, manufacturing costumes for World Book Day with three days' notice. So I hear.

He suggests sending her as some sort of literary urchin. That's right up my alley: whenever we have to produce a costume for a home ed history day, I always plump for the pauper look. The Kid groans and rolls her eyes in embarrassment. "I'm going to run away from home and live with the wolves," she declares.

"I've got news for you," I reply, "The wolves aren't going to make you a decent costume either... unless you want to go as Mowgli?" And not your Disnified Mowgli either, I think, clad in improbable pants. "Naked!!" both of us parents shout in glee. "We'll send her to school naked. With a flaming torch."

I am counting down the weeks until World Book Day.

Blotted our copybook already

Welcome pack duly received. Full of enthusiasm, the Kid immediately set about completing the application form for the local authority, using her own spelling and barely-decipherable handwriting. I mentally rehearsed the phrase, "But don't you WANT her to practice her writing?"

Her diligent efforts were punctuated by requests for advice on filling bits in:

Kid: "Previous education"?

Me: Put "Home educated."

Snide Dad: No, put "None."

Me: "HOME EDUCATED"!!

Kid: How do you spell "home"?

Dad: See what I mean? Put "None."

Later we examined the Home School agreement. My section contained nothing to which I objected, so I signed. The Kid, however, has been learning to consider documents before signing them. She observed that her section obliged her to "do all my classwork and homework as well as I can" and also "tell my teacher if there is anything bothering me." She wasn't prepared to agree to do this at all times. She expects that at times the work will seem pointless and she won't be bothered to give it her all. And she didn't want to share every personal matter with her teacher. I advised her to sign it only if she was prepared to follow it. She decided not to sign. I wrote "declined to sign" across it.

Upon receiving the forms, the secretary said The Kid must sign hers. I pointed out the word "optional" on the form. Looking doubtful, she said she'd have to check with the headteacher, because "everyone has always signed it before..." I don't think either one of us is going to fit in, somehow.

Meeting the head

Today we had our appointment with the headteacher to have a chat and a look round the school.

The Kid and I arrive 20 minutes early and sit on the village green eating our sandwiches. We find a few children nearby, constructing a rope bridge over the stream, and help them test it. Pretty good, I think. I resist the urge to ask why they aren't in school.

With uncharacteristic punctuality we walk in the door on the dot of 2:00. The head invites us into his office. He seems OK, a bit "old school" but perhaps that means he'll have some common sense. My usually chatty child is utterly silenced by the surroundings and his aura of authority, and proceeds to keep her mouth shut throughout the entire visit. He tries to draw her out with some easy questions. Not a word.

Never mind, I think to myself, he'll be hearing plenty from her soon enough. It turns out that he'll be teaching her class two days a week. He doesn't know what he's in for!