‘What’s the point of a good education if I’m banged up’

Charlotte Cripps explains that some parents will stop at nothing, not even committing a criminal offence, if it means getting their kids into the right school

Illustration by Amara May

My neighbour, whose son is Lola’s friend, goes to a nursery in Notting Hill that costs £10,000 a term. His dad, who can clearly afford a car, takes three-year-old Jack to nursery in a giant box, attached to the front of his electric bike. I see parents cycling up Ladbroke Grove with their kids on board even when it is raining – they cover them like turnips under taupaulin. His dad has also banned him from watching Peppa Pig because he thinks Daddy Pig is a bad role model.

My neighbour’s son is lovely but at his recent birthday party, at the ecology centre in Holland Park, full of taxidermy animals, all I could see were present bags from Selfridges, Gucci and Trotters. Whatever happened to Argos?

Another dad at the party told me that his son, also three, is learning Dutch. “Oh that’s nice,” I said. “Do you have any Dutch family?” “No,” he said. “It’s just a very good language for children to learn as a basis for other languages.” (And, presumably, will improve his job prospects). Another parent proudly told me that he wants to transfer his three-year-old to a local nursery that teaches toddlers Chinese, French and coding.

I looked around the room at all the well-dressed children but unfortunately my eye caught sight of my baby, Liberty, 12 months, having an allergic reaction to something: possibly a dead beaver on the wall? As her face blew up all red, another parent whisked me away to A&E in their Audi, leaving Lola with his high-flying banker wife.

I was moved by his kindness as he sat with me in the hospital but when the doctor turned to him to ask if there was asthma in his family, he looked perplexed. “No, no he is not the father,” I said quickly. “My partner is dead.” But when he dropped me back at my car, and wanted to help me put Liberty’s pram in the boot, I grabbed it off him, suddenly filled with shame at the state of my car boot with its empty Pom Pom bear crisp packets and dog hairs.

This nursery crowd is certainly a different kettle of fish to the crew at Lola’s school, where the teachers sound refreshingly like they’re straight out of an East Enders episode. When Lola came home saying, “I didn’t do nofink mum” and “don’t push me mum”, I did have a momentary panic. When she says “I like singin” or “swimmin” it is hard to explain to her that the words need a “g” on the end. But who cares! The place is full of love, with a real mixed bunch of parents from all walks of life: it even has a “forest school’’ tucked away at the bottom of the garden, where children can make things from bits of trees and drink hot chocolate. What more could I want for Lola?

Wherever I look, I’m surrounded by determined parents fighting over places at local Kensington & Chelsea schools – whether private or state. It’s all about “grovelling” and “sucking up to the registrar” or “putting ones hand up for every job going” at the church fair. One mum, whose kids are going to a local state school, told me the motto is: “State til eight.”

The irony about my area is that, generally, if you can afford to buy a property in this borough, you can afford to send your kids to a private school – so I’m a bit of a dichotomy. I’m here by accident because before Alex died he found my flat on the cheap, long before north Kensington became a gentrified version of what was then a dump, on the outskirts of Ladbroke Grove.

And when a school friend, who owns a townhouse in Kensington Church Street, told me that parents went into a bidding war to rent her property, with its fashionable state school, at the end of her road, I realised what I was up against. It makes our weekly trips to Sunday school look quite sane and harmless.

Apparently as a result, the school has now changed its rules, so that proximity to the building isn’t a major deal-breaker. I was even offered her address to get council tax at her property to get into the school. But I thought to myself, no, I am not going to commit a crime to get her into a good school. I mean, sure, I want her to have a good education, but not if I am banged up.

I can’t believe how cutthroat this world is. Am I really going to start worrying about what extra-curriculum activities Lola does for her future university application at the tender age of three?