I DIDN’T like school. I wasn’t good at it and I hated being told what to do.

Not that I was a rebel. My rebellion tended to take place entirely inside my head. Outwardly I was utterly compliant. Inwardly, I was Neo, waiting to take the red pill, so I could break out of the hellish mind control matrix that was school and find out what life was like “Out There.”

Turns out life outside school is also mostly rubbish. In some ways it’s actually worse. But in one way it is vastly superior. Once you have left school, you never, ever, ever, ever have to go to school again. This simple fact has kept me going through many trials and tribulations of life.

“Time for Goose Club!” my daughter bellows at everyone. Her nickname is Goose because of the distinctive and incredibly loud noise she made at birth. She still makes distinctive and incredibly loud noises. She is not a shrinking violet. She used to resent her nickname, but now she has reclaimed it.

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When people don’t immediately respond she starts to clap her hands in a quick rhythm to get our full attention: “Goose club everyone!”

Goose club starts off fun. There’s a show and tell. We each present a thing and she scores us on how interesting it is. She sits behind a little table, a bit like a desk.

Next, she demonstrates songs that we have to copy. We are marked on our rendition.

Then she asks us questions. Then she sets us maths problems. This is becoming less fun. She seems to sense my resentment and claps at me, then threatens to take away some of my merits. I panic at the thought and try harder.

Then I realise. Oh, my God. I’m at school.