One of the results of spending 10 days with my younger grandsons is to get me very hot under the collar about state education and since I can't add more photos at present I may as well vent! Fin is 5yrs 6mths and is at school from 9am to 3pm ish - it might be later. After that he gets homework. The school is already 'grouping' them - in my day that would have been called streaming - and his mum is thinking of getting him extra tuition in maths and reading because if he falls behind he feels a failure. The ethos seems to be entirely structured to achievement and results of a measurable kind, no interest paid to social development, and far far from nurturing the whole child. It's soulless. The reading books are unimaginative and - soulless too, no rhythm, no enjoyment of language... A million miles from Dr. Zeus.

Both parents would like a Steiner School in the area but already the state education has taken their son beyond the point where that system would want to try to integrate him. Steiner claimed that a child forced to read, write or do anything before the appropriate age would suffer from depression when he/she arrived at that age and lose interest in learning. This might sound ridiculous but none of my three read until they were well past 10yrs have all done well with degrees etc. and are, in the main, well-balanced, emotionally mature human beings.

OK there are other factors but - I still think it's all going horribly wrong!!