Judith WOODS

Home schooling has apparently gone stratospheric in the wake of lockdown. At this, I am utterly dumbfounded. It’s not as if they haven’t tried it already under duress, along with the rest of us.

The experience sat somewhere between internecine warfare and hell. The sulky intransigence, the tantrums.

The kids hated it, too. And yet numbers have doubled – to the point where Ofsted will be making official visits to the UK’S kitchen tables.

I wish them luck. Some years ago, I was dispatched to the front line of home schooling and was appalled both by the insufferably superior parents and their mini-me offspring.

The adults were educating their children not because the local schools were dire, but because They Knew Best. This always augurs badly; even Jacob Rees-mogg sends his heirs and spares to school. The children, still of primary age, were “very bright”. This was evidenced by the fact they spoke like the middle-aged, middle-class know-alls who whelped them.

The curriculum was child-led, Tiger Mum told me; no endless, mindless quadratic equations for her cubs.

“Do you enjoy being homeschooled?” I asked one blandly.

“That’s not a very useful question,” came the withering reply from little Lord Fauntleroy. Mum smiled with smug pride. Of course she did. He was her creation, untouched by any world view other than her own. Dad was more of a facilitator, but I reckon I would have instantly disliked him, too.

They socialised, of course, with other Midwich Cuckoos – sorry, home-educated youngsters – because it was important they had friends who shared the same values.

Presumably they spent evenings leafing through National Trust literature or playing rounds of bridge, although, to be fair, the children warmed up after a while and segued from overt disdain to condescension.

I expect they are probably captains of industry by now, thanks to their lofty confidence and impenetrable sense of entitlement. Let’s hope it doesn’t require quadratic equations.