I've blogged before about the classic milestones of childhood being far less interesting than those that go unrecorded and often unremarked. The first time your kid's a hypocrite, anyone? Without doubt one of the real biggies is First Day at School. This phenomenon has an extraordinary effect on even the most social media averse. The obligatory doorstep photo really does seem as compulsory as the NHS clap was during the first lockdown. If an Englishman's home is his castle his doorstep is definitely his family's shop window.
And yet in the Hardy household this particular moment of my child's life (unlikely practically every other millisecond) went unsharented. This might be for the basic reason that I was belting off to court at exactly the time Hardy 1 was making his scholastic debut. It might also be that the school that we just managed to drag ourselves into the catchment area for (and I really mean just, with a waiting list place being made available a couple of days before term started) has no time for such spirit crushing and independence stifling things as uniforms. Something which, for me at least, has been rather discombobulating. My educational endeavours involved more uniforms than Lord Mountbatten would know what to do with. They included brown knickerbockers, gold and russet cravats, tweed jackets, grey flannel trousers, tail coats, stiff collars, white bow ties, mortar boards (even pink carnations for heaven's sake!). Is it any wonder I've ended up in a job involving wigs and 17th century cosplay?
In reality though I think it's because starting school has provoked some intensely, I might go so far as to say, aggressively ambivalent feelings in me. Obviously I am hugely excited that formal education is underway and that his days of making mud pies in the nursery sand pit will fast be a thing of the past. But the fact of the matter is that school and specifically the school day is a complete grenade in the functioning of the family timetable. Drop off is after the start of the working day and pick up is hours before the end of it. In a fully employed household that creates a real childcare conundrum, apparently there are these mythical concepts 'Breakfast Club' and 'After School Club', but I have more chance of winning a place in Valhalla than getting my kid into either of those.
It is very difficult to avoid the conclusion that those in government responsible for administering the education system just do not want both parents in work and it's pretty obvious which parent it is they expect not to be. When I grumbled about this on Twitter someone reasonably observed that small children can't be expected to engage in formal learning until 6 pm and I quite agree. Expecting a 5 year old to be hard at work at their Latin Primer gone cocktail hour is absurd. But sport, art, music, theatre, play, is that not an education also? I know, I know, I know, there are no playing fields, there's no money for instruments and the too few teachers that there are need to get home to plan to Ofsted's satisfaction.
I have absolutely no doubt that I'm about to discover there is a very good reason why school chuck out time falls right in the middle of the afternoon court session but as a newcomer to the game it does seem a very strange rule.
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