I can now repeat the arguments for and against Acorn/Apple Mac/IBM computers as education aids. I can tell you why language labs are indispensable and why they should be junked. I now ask all the right questions about homework, curricula, pastoral care, discipline and drugs. And I’m even beginning to understand the replies.If I had only known that I should be passing wet winter evenings, map in hand, trying to work out why the art room is where the sports hall should be and where on earth the tea and biscuits are being served, I would have taken an orienteering course.

And am I the only parent who always seems to be in the home economics Portakabin at the far end of the sports field when the head’s talk is about to begin half a mile away in the hall?Ah yes, those talks. Essential listening I tell myself – how else can I really get the flavour of the school? – knowing all too well that to hear one is to hear them all. The starting point is always the ethos of the place with the emphasis on the individual. Academic success and examination results are important, we are repeatedly told, but what this particular school excels at is bringing out the best in each child.This bit of philosophy is closely followed by an attack on the iniquitous league tables. Having warned prospective parents of how misleading these are as a measure of a school’s success, heads invariably go on to describe their league-table performance in stupefying detail. The audience is then invited to refer to the printed “hymn sheets” – distributed at the door on arrival – listing every single exam result and university entrance.My sympathy lies with these men and women. Year after year they must sell their school to an audience composed mainly of people who will never set foot inside it again.

At one evening the desperate headmaster enlivened his annual talk with a school-uniform fashion show, complete with simpering models. Another beleaguered head so forgot herself that she sent two visiting children out of the hall for talking, to the astonishment of the assembled prospective parents.So what have I learnt from my researches? Very little. Certainly I can tell you that School A has labs from the next century, more computers than Nasa, an Olympic-sized swimming pool and a concert hall bigger than the Barbican, while School B is state-of-the-art circa 1950. The head at School Y is a power dresser with voice projection to match, while the one at School Z has his eyes permanently fixed on his Hush Puppies. The artwork on display at P could have made the Royal Academy, while that at Q looks like a pile of junk (which probably qualifies it only for the Tate).But what does any of this prove? Only that some schools are richer, some heads more articulate and some art teachers more selective than others about the work they display. These visits give no sense of the issues that really matter – how smoothly and efficiently a school runs; whether or not it has a caring heart, and whether it truly values and nurtures the children in its charge. Those are the things you find out only when it is too late ….

There can be few tutors who actively hope that their students will disappear before the end of the course, but Alex Towells is one of them. A management studies teacher at City College, Norwich’s management centre, last year he decided it was time to make his expertise and excellent contacts with local employers available to jobless graduates in the hope of finding them employment. The course, funded by the European Social Fund, began last May and, to Mr Towells’s delight, by its conclusion last month only four of the original 25 students were left. Three had fallen by the wayside but the rest had found jobs.
The 29-week course leads to a Certificate in Management Studies (CMS) for those who complete it.