The kids went back to school this week. I think you might have noticed, by the increased traffic on the roads, the queues outside of the shop at home time and the cheers of parents drifting across the country.

Look, we all love our children, but not every day. My youngest daughter had her first day back last week and she was tired, I mean it’s to be expected I did drop her off at four in the morning.

We had a lovely summer, but it feels long. The endless quest to keep them entertained and off the screens, it’s a battle and one that seems to get harder every year.

We are fortunate in that my wife and I are at home during the summer holidays, she is a teacher and I’m a professional clown, so it works for us. When I was a kid, my parents had to work, my Mum was a hairdresser and my Dad was a fireman, that’s not seasonal work. You can’t have a cut off for perms in July and no-one would accept, “I’ve just lit the BBQ” .an excuse for not rescuing someone from a burning building.

They sent me to a holiday club at the local school. It seemed a bit exciting at first, but then you just realise it’s extra school, the only difference is none of your mates are there. I spent six weeks doing cross stitch, making candles, banking and building models. I’m not sure who was running these workshops, but I think looking back it might have been the Amish community. I think it was just child labour, disguised as fun.

My daughter is nervous about starting her new term, she’s just turned nine years old. It’s easy to dismiss this when you’re an adult but it’s quite a big deal. Imagine you were at work for a year. You get your desk set up, you get to know your colleagues, you start to relax and then on the first day in September, they fire your director and stick you on a new desk next to someone you’ve never even met. It’s brutal. I don’t like change and I’m forty-six. I’m still with BT for my broadband because I’m too scared to switch, it can feel like the end of a marriage, and you’ve done nothing wrong. Rather than face the anxiety of change I stick with it, I show loyalty, even if that loyalty means I have to switch off everything, including the glade plug in, just to make a zoom call.

School can be a very unnerving experience. The only time in your life where you have no freedom, it’s a bit like a prison, the only difference is they have longer for lunch. My daughter has thirty-five minutes now, they might as well line them up in the playground and get the dinner ladies to fire it into their faces with a catapult.

I think school catches you in a weird point in your life. Not a child, not quite an adult. You don’t know who you are, and how you fit in. Your personality is not fully formed, your opinions are the same as your mates and you can’t show any weakness otherwise it’s with you for four years. Your hair has to be right, you have to have the right stationary, and if the length of your trousers is not regulation, you may as well as to be homeschooled.

That’s something that sounds appealing, homeschooling but I bet it gets boring. I couldn’t imagine not having the chance to eat sweets at 8am every morning. You’d miss all the playground fights. Although the benefit is at least you wouldn’t be involved in any. “Meet you at 3.30 for a fight?” “Where?” “At the bottom of your own driveway!” Also, you think you’re s­cared of the headteacher, nothing compares to the threat of “just you wait until your dad gets home!”

Schools now are brilliant; they are so on it. A bit too on it. If we ever had to fight a war, I tell you who I would have in charge of logistics. Not a general or an expert tactician, bring in the school secretary. Ours is relentless.

Sometimes she’ll ring and not leave a voicemail. That missed call from the school strikes fear into your heart. You fear the worst, you stop what you’re doing, you immediately ring back, your heart pounding.

“Just wanted to let you know Mr Bennett, they are having yogurt for pudding at lunch today”

It’s like been in a relationship with some weird stalker.

They message me all the time.

“Anyone lost a pencil?”

“It’s indoor playtime today”

“The newsletter has been emailed this afternoon, have you got it?”

By the time I’ve plowed through all this paperwork, I’m late for school pick up!

A new term means only one thing. Nits. It’s coming, that message, that blanket email, which has the tone of wartime propaganda.

“We have a case of Nits, PLEASE CHECK YOUR CHILD!!!!”

Apparently, nits can squat in anyone’s hair, why do they choose a nine-year-old at a comprehensive that is in special measures.

Those nits need to have more ambition, get on Deniro’s head, a weekend on Ant then Dec, and then spend the summer on Bradley Walsh.

Hearing the word nits is still scary! – in the 80’s was brutal. One scratch behind your ear and the next minute you’re in ahead lock, and the school nurse brings out the shears and leaves you looking like a miniature Phil Mitchell!

My Daughter’s school has a no nit policy, they’ve not seen a cardigan in years. They don’t want anything in that building. It’s like the Australian during lockdown, zero tolerance.

Sent was once sent home for a wet fart. She had chili at lunch, laughed and coughed at the same time and the next minute I’ve had a phone call, and found her in reception looking bewildered holding her pants in a plastic bag.

“Get well soon they said to her”

There was nothing wrong with her. When I worked in an office I’d do that most Monday mornings after my first coffee, they never sent me home!

I’ve learned it’s a myth that nits only went for kids with poor personal hygiene. I showered every day, mum would wash my hair with Vosene, which as we know is a registered chemical weapon, and I still got a dose.  

One lad in our class, who never washed his hands and once had skid marks on the OUTSIDE of his underpants, sailed through school, nit free. He was riddled with worms though.

I’m going now, got to get her stuff ready for the next school day. Making sandwiches, filling her massive Stanley cup, that takes a few hours. Since when did children start taking enough water to quench the thirst of an African village to school? I want her to be hydrated, but she must be urinating like a camel.

I also polish her shoes every night. It’s a tradition passed down to me from my father. He used to be fireman and it’s part of his DNA. The working-class way, put on your tie and clean your shoes. He used to buff those things, so I looked like a Beefeater. I was eleven. I spent break times kicking a tennis ball around a playground, I wasn’t Alan Sugar. I can always smell that polish, I think it gives my Dad flashback to been on duty, it must be how Nigel Mansell feels whenever he fills the car with Petrol.

I think school sometimes doesn’t prepare you for the real world. Some people are late developers. The world my children live in now is very different to the one I grew up in.

We didn’t have influencers when I was at school. We had people who would do dares. There was a lad who ate bees, one who cycled into a river, another tattooed his hand with a compass. Back then they were lunatics, now they’d probably be millionaires.

My daughter is accident prone, they often send her home with “bump notes” detailing the latest, Jackass style stunt she’s inflicted on herself. She’s collecting these things now. They have a little diagram on them, with an area circled where they’ve hurt themselves, it’s like an autopsy! Five more and we can publish it as a novel. It’s going to be sadder than Angela’s Ashes.

I’ve looked at the clock, it’s time for pick up. I swear I literally drop her off and may as well turn round again. Anyone who doesn’t believe in time travel should drop off a child at school and then try to have a productive day. It just doesn’t happen.

I’ve made one brew; my butt cheeks almost touched the sofa and now I’m off again.

Still, at least we get to buy some sweets.