Thou shalt not hand in sub-standard science projects....thou shalt prove Bigfoot is real

Published on Tuesday 22 April 2008 20:08

Independent schools are just as much of an education for harassed parents as their children, writes a bruised KATE MILLER

WE HADN'T counted on the roadworks. Five miles away in an airy classroom in a large private school, a small boy was coming to the end of an entrance exam. It was a two-hour exam, long enough for us to drive into town, go for a coffee and wander round the shops looking at all the things we wouldn't be able to afford if he did as well as we hoped.

And now we were 15 minutes late, and running like flash mobbers through a deserted playground, the responsible parent look we had so carefully crafted that morning in disarray. Me, in a skirt for the first time in three years, with an interestingly knotted scarf and a handbag that didn't come free with a magazine. Him, in a shirt and sweater combo that friends say makes him look like Tony Blair. To be avoided in most situations, but given the number of Labour MPs with their offspring in private education, considered eminently suitable on this occasion.

The small boy was by himself in the classroom and was handed over by a teacher with a politely disapproving smile.

"It's OK," he said as we swept him out in a flurry of apologies. "The teacher said if you didn't turn up I could go to one of the boarding houses because they know how to look after children."

Despite our possible sabotaging of his chances, he felt it had all gone splendidly. The sums were easy, he said, and the hardest word he had been asked to spell was 'university,' which he was convinced he had got right.

"Well done," said I. "And how did you spell it?"

"Y-o-o……"

Three weeks later, a sleek cream envelope slid through the letterbox and onto the jumble of shoes that blight our hallway like a fast-growing mould. His instincts were right. He was in and so was his sister, further up the school.

We celebrated that night with a bottle of screw-top wine, knowing our budget would not stretch to much more for the next decade, and congratulated ourselves that the hardest part was over. From now on, we told ourselves smugly, it's a cinch.

Only it's not. You child is not the only one who gets an education at a private school. As a parent, you will be tested as never before. If you're considering taking the plunge, here's what you must know to survive:

First roll over in bed and have a look at the person on the other pillow. What skills do they have? Are they complementary to yours? If English is your thing, is maths and science theirs? Do they know a factorial is not a protg of Simon Cowell? If not, consider divorce and subscription to the Mensa dating club. Between you, you need to cover all the bases, and those bases include Latin and advanced calculus.

The kit list is not The Ten Commandments. So when it says, 'schoolbag: self-coloured only, black or navy,' that can mean the latest day-glo Jane Norman tote, hung about with assorted spangly keyrings. And the black lace-up shoes that you last saw on the likes of Miss Marple can be substituted for any old ballet pump from Tesco. Accept, however, that as a first-time private school parent, you will be too scared to deviate, and ill find yourself opting for regulation every time, even down to the matching scrunchie and gym pants.

Private schools like to test the ingenuity of parents with a series of seemingly impossible tasks to perform over the year. They work on the basis of what will be most difficult to source – a yellow T-shirt in January; white trousers in November; evidence of Bigfoot by close of play on Friday, please.

As if that's not enough, twice or three times a year they surprise you with a project. I say 'you' because everyone knows it's not the children who do it. So when you carry in your Play-Doh model of an iceberg for Earth Day, with the penguin off the Christmas cake, expect to see anything from a fish tank recreation of the North Atlantic Drift to a full-size animatronic polar bear. Projects pale into insignificance when it comes to the Science Competition. You'll have a fortnight to come up with something that might dazzle Stephen Hawking. Think nuclear fusion, not baking soda volcanoes.

Forget Mr Holland's Opus, the music teacher will generally make Heather Mills look amiable. Our youngest practices his recorder religiously every night, but out of abject fear rather than any sense of duty. He sings as if his life depended on it, which it may do. That said, there is a dizzying array of instruments at his disposal and the sound of the choir at the Christmas concert is so beautiful it hurts.

There is a certain robustness to private school games. Actually, scratch that. There's a thirst for competition that would make Commodus blush. If your child makes it through to sixth year without a compound fracture, then they've not been applying themselves. If they do make it into a team, you will be expected to attend matches. Invest in some decent wellies – no patterns, please – a shooting stick and a dog. Not just any dog. The kind that knows its grouse from its chew bone, and could answer to Tarquin. Not the kind that runs on to the pitch and lifts its leg on the goalpost.

Private school mothers have their own Spice Girls hierarchy. There's sporty mum, posh mum, glamorous mum, scary mum, and young mum. You will need to fit into one of these categories. Sporty or Scary are your best bet. Buy a pair of MBTs (physiological footwear) and release your inner Alan Sugar. Eighty percent of families at private school pay the fees out of income, so trust fund types are in the minority. They do, however, throw the best parties. Expect to see the Sugababes flown in for entertainment and to find a Faberge egg in the party bag. Avoid the trophy wives, unless you are one, in which case a factorial is not a protg of Simon Cowell. It's a very big sum.

Homework. Keep within reach at all times a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica, Oxford English Dictionary and a friendly post-doctoral student. Remember to sign the homework jotter. That way, you can keep up the pretence you sat at your child's shoulder smiling encouragingly, when we all know you were prone on the sofa with a bag of Cadbury mini-eggs watching The Dog Whisperer.

All private schools will say that they like to keep the lines of communication open with parents.

This is a lie. They get all the information they need from two sources: your offspring's news diary and the space outside your child's classroom, otherwise known as The Wall of Shame. Two years ago, under What I Did In My Easter Holidays, and posted for all to see on the Wall of Shame, my son had written: "Nothing." This was after a week of football classes, two trips to Holy Island, one Ceramic Experience, two sleepovers, three play dates and learning how to ride his bike.

His sister, meanwhile, had favoured the stream of consciousness approach.

She wrote: "Mum took us over to that monk island two times and the second time my brother needed the loo, but my mum has a thing about public toilets and she didn't think it was OK to go in the flowerbeds in a holy ruined place so he had to clutch until we got home. And then mum had one of her heads, and I'm not sure if it was a wine head like Daddy calls it or one of her real sore heads; the kind where she needs to take the pink pills that look like the medicine that we give the dog when he gets his flaky problem."

The news diary, meanwhile, will be returned to you at the end of the school year, so you will have the summer to come to terms with the fact that the teacher now knows your every failing, or, as one friend experienced recently, has discovered that "my mummy is married to my daddy but she would like to be married to Diarmuid from the garden show."

And finally, prejudice. I find the people who take most offence at our decision to go private tend to have a time-share in Kissimmee, and a car that makes the penguins cough, which, added together, cover what we pay in fees each year. Of course, they don't like to have this pointed out. Accept there will always be those who will judge you, and ignore their often ill-informed bias. The choice to take the independent route is not a political decision; it is an intensely private one. And, for all the pressures and pitfalls and financial pain, it is one that we have not regretted for an instant.

• Kate Miller has two children at an independent school in Scotland.