School Time?

My son, Scott, is just 14 months old and it's fair to say that of the many things on his mind right now, school is not one of them. Frankly, until this weekend, it wasn't on mine either.

My wife had been hit by a case of 'Bad-Mother-itis' after someone had asked her if she had put Scott's name down for a school yet. Both of us looked at one another and frowned. He's only 14 months old for goodness sake. However, in a sharp lesson we found that many parents are putting their child's name down at a school almost as soon as he or she is born such is the competition for places at good schools these days.

So in the blind panic that knee jerk reactions can cause, we found ourselves attending the Open Day of the nearby Prep School, York House near Croxley Green. Actually, it's near nowhere as it is a school set in its own grounds and sports a long drive down to an old redbrick building with a clock tower that looks like the set of 'Tom Brown Schooldays'.

Why, when we have several other schools to see (most of which are not private), did we choose to look at the most expensive Prep School in Hertfordshire first (OK, I am guessing here but I reassure myself that if there is another more expensive then I will be shocked), I don't know?

First of all we were late. Then I felt under dressed in jeans and a jumper. I felt even my swanky car looked cheap. But when we crossed the threshold we were met by both Head and Deputy Head Master who both shook us warmly by the hand just hard enough to see if they could hear the coins jangle in my pocket and I was reminded that these places are not just schools, they are businesses. We passed the first test and were passed onto a well groomed Asian pupil called Hassan to show us around. I work with many young people who are intelligent and good at the their jobs but who lack some diction. This kid was just 13 and he had better elocution that most company executives.

Hassan had more badges on his blue blazer than an experienced Morris Dancer which were for every sport conceivable. As we looked around the fantastic buildings and Kindergarten, he casually asked me if I played cricket. First, the assumption that I still played rankled a little. Then when I smugly said I used to play for a local league team, he asked 'Which county'?

County!? I was a bit part player for Hemel Hempstead but was proud of my minor achievements. Thank God he didn't ask me about rugby. In reply to all this he pointed to a spotty young kid in the other room and said he played for Middlesex. I suddenly realised how pathetically inadequate my life had been.

I also realised, as I surveyed each superbly equipped classroom and spoke to every toothy teacher, that a young child could get no better start in their life educationally to spend as much as 10 years at this place.

This taught me two things: 1) We had made a tragic mistake by coming to see York House first. It now muddles our thinking and sets unrealistic expectations for any other school we see. I mean, I can't think that a Primary School in our area will not only not have its own swimming pool but it certainly will not be able to have Kayak lessons in there. The only upside was that Scott slept most of the tour and so I reason that what he didn't see, he won't miss. 2) If we were to send our as yet unborn child and Scott to such a school for all of 10 years then we will have paid as much in fees as our current mortgage. Yes, it's that much.

By quirk of fate, I went to a Prep School as my father worked mainly abroad on assignments for BP who then paid the lion share of fees for any UK schooling as mostly boarding was required. I went to Craig-y-Nos school in Uplands, Swansea which has since relocated to the Gower Peninsula and was recently attended by my nephew, Matthew. When I went there it was a converted townhouse and was run by a Headmaster with a stutter called Ernie Walters and its only sporting prowess was cricket. We won the Under 11 Swansea District Cup but I missed the Final at St Helens because I finished term early to visit my parents somewhere abroad. My point here, was that Prep schools have moved on.

The problem I have with York House, apart from the potential drain on income, is that Prep Schools are usually a pre-cursor to a full private education. I subsequently attended Christ College, Brecon which is a fantastic school if you like rugby but this was only because my parents were abroad so much of the time. Scott will hopefully have us close at hand and so I don't envisage a need for boarding school or private school for that matter.

The problem maybe catchment areas. I don't know enough about local secondary schools around us but I know that Watford Grammar has a superb reputation while Verulam in St Albans is the feeder school to my old rugby club, Old Verulamium - and that's good enough for me. But we are not in the catchment area for either and I can't see ourselves moving into St Albans and sacrificing the peace and quiet of our current location for the hubbub of the City Centre and no parking or garden. The dogs would never forgive me.

But then, there was the Science lesson. As we entered the Kindergarten to look around its excellent facilities, we saw a group of boys led by a balding teacher who was conducting a science lesson in the yard. He had a foot pump and an inverted pop bottle a third filled with water with a rubber hose its neck connecting it to the pump and a boy was taking his turn to hold it in place as air was pumped in. As the teacher told the pupils that pressure was building and the molecules were gaining more energy, that energy had to have somewhere to go. And he was right. The bottle left its launchpad via the thrust of the ejecting water being forced out by the pressurised air. The child underneath was soaked. That experiment alone could have sold the whole place a thousand times over.

Who would have thought that the thought of schools for a 14 month old who can't even talk yet let alone read would cause such panic and hysteria?

As one parent put it to me over the weekend, this is just the start.

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