It’s the last week of term, when kids should be watching a documentary about pyramids on a loop, every lesson, and teachers should be congratulating themselves all day long on another year survived. But times have changed since we were young. Now, the week is marked by outlandish demands. It starts when they’re tiny, no older than five: just as you’re leaving the house, they’ll announce it’s Victorian day and they need a bonnet and 25 packets of crisps. Wait, why the crisps? Why 25 packets? Because it’s a Victorian disco, obviously, and everyone in the class needs crisps. You dredge every corner of your psyche and figure that there is a pair of blue pants you own that will look like a bonnet if you safety-pin the leg holes shut. You get it on their head and it’s exactly right. You’re a genius. No, it needs to be green; the other class is in blue.
And with all the infinite sadness of time’s passing, as your tiny cute moppets morph into giant six-footers dedicated tirelessly to the delineation of your personal failings, there’ll be one upside, you think: no more bonnets. And they’ll be able to buy their own crisps.
This, it turns out, is completely wrong; if anything, the demands get worse. It’s wellbeing week, so one has a sports day and the other is going ice-skating. They need mini-bags of Maltesers; they need hand-eye coordination, like, yesterday; they don’t know whether they’re meant to be in uniform or PE kit, so they’ll wear both, but they do not want to be too hot; they need a plausible note from a medical professional detailing why they can’t ice-skate, but they also need ice-appropriate snacks. (“Iced gems?” “If that’s the best you can do.”)
Then it’s board game day. One needs to be armed with the rules of a game that nobody else will know (mah-jongg? “Stop making up words”), but the other one has a sewing bee – what could possibly go wrong? Everyone has a needle and thread, except no – it’s giant sewing, so they need a fishing rod and rope made of gold.
I think it might be a charitable act on the part of the school, to make us appreciate the holidays.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist.
