COMPETITIVE - MOI?

The last two weeks of term are intense. Our children’s skills will be put to the test, up for all to see. They need to act, sing, play musical instruments and run as fast as their skinny legs can carry them. Combined with the in-coming SATs results these days are the highest pressure, stress moments in the life of your average state primary school. This is because, if your kids’ schools are anything like ours, you’ll know that most of the year we don’t do competition. Excellence is almost sneered at, we love the underdog. The one who smiles in their losing moments, the one who has battled against adversity, but heaven forbid that they should come first.

That is what the teachers would have us believe. But of course, this simply is not the case with either the parents or the children. Oh, we all coo, “ just so long as little Johnny has a good time”. But watch the parents at the side of the Sports Day field and you will see another story. Good Lord I nearly got my ears blown off by a father who was shouting words of encouragement to his son. It was the kind of primeval cry you’d expect to hear in a bullring, and there I was on the side of an idyllic Wiltshire field watching 8-11 year olds completing the Cross Country Race. Race, who said race? It’s the taking part that matters.

On Thursday Flo has to play the violin at the school concert. She is just eight, bless her, and is adorable and marvellous in every way, but can she play the violin? Only if strangled cat is the effect you’re after. She hasn’t been practising and the sound she makes is astonishing in its awfulness. I have to admit that I am at fault here too, because I’m supposed to have bought her some resin. This is the stuff you rub on the strings to make it sound smooth and gorgeous. Flo had thrown hers away because she thought it was an old boiled sweet. I love that so much I want to bottle the innocence of it. However, I still haven’t driven the 30 mile round trip (I kid you not) to the nearest music shop to buy any. The sorry state of this tiny violin has been compounded (also my fault) by me fiddling (ho, ho) with the string tighteners in order to achieve a better sound.

I’m so worried about the concert now, that I’m thinking of having a quiet word with the violin teacher. I can’t bear for Flo (or me for that matter) to be put through this public humiliation. The school has violin lessons as part of a government initiative to get music into primary schools, it’s all very cheerful and low pressure so I know what she will say - It’s the taking part that matters. In my day we all knew where we stood, the good ones performed and the rest of us cheered, it was all very straightforward. These days the bad ones perform while everyone squirms.

To add to the general anxiety Bobby has been chosen as the lead part in the Infants Play. Heaven help us! When it comes to organised activities Bobby is, (how should I put this?) erm, wayward. Any opportunity for a little off-piste behaviour and his eyes light up with glee and he’s off doing his own thing. The Father of the Children tries to reassure me.

“They teach him, they should know him by now.”

“Well. they quite obviously don’t,” I reply tersely.

So I ‘m dreading the whole week. Sports day, Infant Concert, Junior Concert and the worst, worst of all - The Leavers Service. This is where I shall embarrass all my children dreadfully by weeping far too obviously because my oldest son, my baby Max, will leave Primary School for ever to join 1200 big, scary apes at Secondary School. Truth be known I cry every year. There’s something about the departing class all flushed with their futures that does it to me. My children are probably used to their weeping mother by now, and at least this year I’ll have a reason for it; fingers crossed for their sakes I don’t descend into gulping sobs.

Life in the Slow Lane is written by Clare Kent. She has three children - Max is nearly eleven, Flo is nearly eight and Bobby is six and a half - and lives in Wiltshire.

NEXT INSTALMENT: WEDNESDAY 31 JULY