Column: Chris Howard’s daughters are off to secondary school. But which one?

Just how do you decide which secondary school to send your child to? With his eldest daughters finishing their final year of primary, Cambridge’s coast-walking dad Chris Howard mulls over the journey ahead

The time has come for Thing One and Thing Two to begin the journey towards secondary schools and, with that, their childhood is all but over. . . or is it? For many of us parent folk, it only seems like yesterday that we watched them walk through the school gate for the first time all trussed up in sweet little uniforms and bunches, shiny shoes and anxious smiles. The rite of passage our parents remembered before us and theirs before that, right back to year dot. Whilst we begin processing the whole shift to the next stage of their lives, I wonder if it’s the same for all of us and what things we think about.

We want them to go to the best school of course but there’s all kinds of external influences to factor in and I find myself overwhelmed and frankly exhausted with it all. Let’s stop ourselves mid-track on the Big School thought train for just a second and consider what’s best for the cubs.

I hear so many parents comparing the experiences of visiting secondary schools with their own schooling and childhood. You cannot. Don’t, just stop. This is the cubs’ time and school’s different now, far different than it ever was (as is the education system and government of the day). The rules are different, the way learning is done is different. So just because you’d like your sproglet to go to a particular school, because another parent you talk to has said that’s the best and that’s where to be, doesn’t mean it’s best for your child or where they might want to be.

There are now online talks and virtual tours as well as the traditional ‘in person’ walk rounds (albeit one parent per child as a rule). What kind of archaic foolishness is that? As if the schools assume one parent is more responsible for a child’s education than the other. I’m thankful we have twins. . . as ever!

There are group chats on WhatsApp and chitter chatter in the playground about everything from teaching style to school trip costs and transport grants, catchment areas, school rules, text book and lunch arrangements. It’s all to be considered but listen, literally just listen and think, because chatter quickly becomes gossip and leads to misinformation. It’s an important time and important choice but the needs of every family and child will be different. It’s easy to get agitated or agitate others unintentionally but remember, your child may be anxious too and so it’s important to stay calm and carry on with an upbeat approach. Even if you’re paralysed by the memory of the demon headmaster and scared you’ll soon be pleading with them that your little Johnny wasn’t the one who put the cherry bomb in little Sarah Lou’s lunch box and caused a fire in the science block leading to full evacuation and BBC reporters on helicopters documenting the smouldering ruin of the school you chose.

Resist the urge to compare, be as informed as you possibly can, put your child’s best interests at heart, let go a little and think about the young adult your child will become at their new school. They may be young and incapable of walking home alone or sorting their own daily schedule right now, but in no time at all they’ll be donning miniskirts, gold chains and hoop earrings whilst the boys will have waistbands below their footballs and grunty fur faces frowned with spots, just like we did.

Take the pressure off yourself to be perfect and all-knowing. Do your homework; you’ll probably get it right, but the fact is the world won’t end if you don’t. This is important where the schools you have applied for are over-subscribed and you might not get your first choice. Make sure you make it known that every school on the list will be just fine because your child needs to know they’ll be ok wherever they end up. As Youngest Thing often says so eloquently ‘life’s just life’.

Read more about Chris’s adventures at thecoastwalker.com