Jonny McCambridge: The end of an ordeal – after months of waiting, it’s time to find out about big school

I have spent a lot of time in recent weeks spinning the narrative that is not really such a totemic moment, that whatever way it turns out, all will be well.

However, with the cover of social deceit stripped away by the darkness of the night and knowing that my son is asleep next door, the truth is that I am dreading unwelcome news.

The process of preparing the ground for the change to big school seems to have been going on for years and I have written about it on this page several times.

The agonies of the transfer test, the awkwardness of the school open nights, the complexities of learning about the variant admissions criteria of multiple establishments and filling out the applications.

Throughout it all, my son has maintained a fixed idea of where he wants to go. There is no secondary school in our village so any choice will require travel. The school my son prefers is served by a bus route with a stop just yards from our front door.

In addition, his best friend wants to go to the same establishment and his beloved cousins live within minutes of the building. It all fits.

While it might seem that having such a strong and clear frontrunner simplifies the ordeal, it actually serves to make it more difficult. What happens now if we can’t get him a place at the school he wants to go to?

The outcome is really nothing to do with me, but I know that I will feel personally responsible if the email does not contain good news.

Sometimes having a little bit of information can be a dangerous thing. It massively destabilised our plans a year ago when I studied the admissions criteria of the favoured school and worked out that the maths didn’t work.

If we lived closer to the school he would have a better statistical chance. The conclusions of my amateur detective work were reinforced when the principal of my son’s primary told me that in the previous year only kids with an older brother or sister already there had gained a place.

This sent us into a tailspin of panic trying to find credible backup plans. We travelled further away from home as we examined other options. There were plenty of good schools with much to offer but none where the logistics seemed to work quite so well.

One school, which we were very impressed with would have required me to drive my son in the morning to a bus depot several miles away. A first bus then would take him part of the way before he had to switch on to another before he ever got to the gates.

Aside from the logistics, the more fundamental problem was that I knew he had already set his heart on his chosen school.

I’ve tried a few times in the last few weeks to dampen down his expectations and hopes a little, but I’ve never quite been able to find the right form of words to tell him that the strong possibility is that he won’t be able to go where he wants to.

There is no rest to be found as the night gives way to morning. I notice my wife stirring and she makes the first check of her phone at 5am.

She looks again at 6am and the email has still not been sent.

The third inspection shortly before 7am finds the message in the junk basket. It is opened and we take a few seconds to make sense of the words.

Then we understand; my son has been offered a place at his number one choice, the school which he has always wanted to go to.

This is news which needs to be shared. We go to my son’s bedroom and, despite the early hour, find that he is already awake. I wonder for how long he has been lying there waiting for us.

My wife tells him which school he will be attending and he emits a small yelp of excitement.

Then he insists on being shown the email so he can read it himself to make sure that we have not made an error.

There is the obligatory sharing of good news in multiple WhatsApp groups of family and friends.

There are other parents up equally early on this Saturday morning and soon my son receives a message that his best friend will be going to the same school.

After a while I go downstairs and make a cup of tea for my wife. I turn the coffee machine on and it bubbles away while I put cereal in a bowl for my son.

Once the breakfast duties have been completed, I go outside into the backyard. It is a fine weekend day and the early morning sun is bringing out the spring colours in what passes for my garden.

I notice, for the first time this year, that our glorious pink rose bush has begun to bloom.

I sit on the patio furniture, still in my pyjamas. I am filled with conflicted emotions, having read messages from some parents whose children did not get places in the schools that they wanted.

But there is also a lightness within me, born of relief rather than pleasure. It is like a sick part of my body has been cut out, and until it was gone, I did not realise how debilitating its presence had become.

I sit there for some time enjoying the early morning sun and watching the roses.