YOU'VE gotta love the end of term. All those long, sunny summer days stretching endlessly ahead of us (45 everyone – count 'em) with nothing to do but dish out cash hand over fist to our thankless offspring while trying to keep them out of trouble with the neighbours/police/ international drug enforcement agencies.
Okay, that last one was just a joke. At least I hope that I'm still chuckling smugly come August – though a friend who recently stumbled across her 12-year-old daughter's Bebo conversation about weed ("Well, she left the laptop open, what was I suppo
sed to do?") should probably serve as a cautionary reminder that you really can never be too sure.
Their teachers, on the other hand, can't get out of school fast enough. See those clouds of dust? Hear that screeching of tyres? That's the guardians of our children's future heading for the hills with a mad glint in their eyes and a twitching vein in their necks. It feels as though they have been clearing out classrooms for months in readiness for their nice extended summer break, as the pile of paper sent home grows in direct proportion to the reduction of work they actually get through.
"What did you do at school today?" I asked innocently mid-June.
"Watched a film," they grunted almost unintelligibly as they elbowed past me on their way to the multipack of crisps.
At least we used to have to wait until the last day of term before bringing in the bashed Monopoly boards, Kerplunk and, if you were lucky, Mousetrap. But all month, the Wild One has been treated to T-shirt-making workshops, tennis, recording sessions, skateboarding, orienteering, swimming... building him and his classmates up to such a frenzy of end-of-term excitement that it's a wonder the entire class isn't on emergency doses of Ritalin.
And don't get me started on the oceans of crafts, old jotters and artwork that will find its way into the parental home come July – testament to the little angels' many hours of academic exertions, but frankly useless to anyone without a vast underground storage facility at their disposal.
Now, I love reading my children's stories as much as the next mother, but what on earth would I want with their maths books? So into the recycling bin they will go, quicker than you can say, "Remind me what trigonometry is all about, again?"
Then there are their lovingly crafted objects from CDT (that's craft, design and technology to those of you who still can't get your heads round the fact that they changed it from techie drawing). I have managed to offload the dressing-table mirror that looked as though it had been carved from a shard of broken glass and enough rough-hewn wood to keep me in splinters for the rest of the summer. But the two completely useless wooden spatulas would, I'm afraid, be missed by their makers if I 'recycled' them.
My own mother, bless her soft heart, recently discovered one of my creative-writing jotters during a clear-out. It featured a tale entitled 'When I Met the Highwayman', which I can only assume was inspired by some prepubescent pash for Adam Ant, and which caused the Teenager no end of amusement. Ah, the folly of youth...
Art folders, too, have been returned home proudly, awaiting maternal approval. The Mild One's work really is rather good. "What's that design on the front?" I asked, impressed. "Is it a fireman?"
Er, try a gangster, Mum.
"But isn't that a fire extinguisher in his hand?"
A spray can, actually.
That wasn't a beard on his chin, either, but a fashion-statement gas mask.
At this stage the Teenager took me aside and quietly pointed out that my comments might have been just the teensiest bit hurtful. "Don't say any more about it," she advised sagely. "It'll only embarrass him. But maybe – and I don't want to be cheeky – maybe you might want to be a bit more sensitive next time."
And maybe, just maybe, they're teaching them something at school after all.
