September

Any home with school age children considers September at least an important an annual new beginning as January. For us it's even more so, especially this year when Daughter has just started secondary school a year early in Year 6, Son is now cock of the family walk alone in his old school, and Mum starts a new year with double the timetable in a third school. I haven't been near the computer to check email, let along blog.

Two thirds into the month I can breathe, glug my Lemsip and take stock.

She is loving her new school; Japanese lessons, swimming lessons, Science in a proper lab, lunches on the field and being able to pop along and gawp at the glamorous sixth formers; it's all fantastic for her. Never mind that she's sitting down to three homeworks assignments every evening and her school day is 50 miuntes longer than it was. She's loving it.

He's doing really well, relieved of the burden of a high achieving sister in the class above carrying all before in every arena of school life. He's bringing home 'I'm a superstar' stickers and doing all his homework.

And me? I'm shattered. I'm not the world's most organised person. I'm forgetful about quotidian detail while being able to remember the most esoteric details about all sorts of interesting stuff. So three schools' agendas to remember is driving me nuts. Too many balls in the air - they keep crashing down on my head. But having said that I LOVE my new teaching timetable; the kids, the material, the atmosphere. I love being more a part of my work environment and I'm thriving. I've started a film-making club with a member of the Drama department and it's all hugely exciting.

I read at the beginning of term that young children entering into reception classes show very high levels of stress. If that has been proven, then presumably they were subjected to tests. Might the tests cause the stress? And if they are stressed, might that not be attributable to the parents' attitude to the children's starting school? Children I know are wound up with excitement by the time they enter the schoolroom for the first time. The enjoy it because they are told they will enjoy it. I suppose if you tell your child that there is something to worry about, they will worry about it. Mind you, is not anxiety closely related to excitement? I'm sure chemically it must be. There seems no end to the range of ways that parents are made to feel guilty about their children. Memo to self - don't read these things.