OURS is not the only household currently vibrating dangerously with the sigh punctuated silence of GCSE revision. Or indeed where SATs are being endured

Observing all that teenage angst and pre-teen anxiety cannot help but bring back memories of O levels, as we called them in the mists of educational pre-history. I can remember that feeling of fatalism, as you realise that it is too late to gain any real understanding of the Reform Acts of 1832, the motives of Mark Antony, or what on earth trigonometry IS FOR! All that is possible is the cramming in of a few dates, quotes and formulae.

Then a deep breath and remember to read the question paper properly and allocate enough time for every question.

There are still apparently countless failures to read the question, resulting in excellent answers to questions not asked.

Who can forget the rarefied atmosphere of the exam room, with invigilators trying desperately not to look bored witless while ambling around checking that you haven't tattooed Pythagoras' theorem on the inside of your eyelids or have the complete works of Shakespeare hidden inside your wooden leg.

I am lost in admiration for the students today, as well as their teachers. It cannot have escaped the notice of anyone of my generation that the contemporary 16-year-old is expected to achieve standards in Maths and the Sciences, in particular, but in all subjects to a certain extent, which are arguably equivalent to those that my lot studied at A level.

I ceased to be able to offer any help at all to my daughter in her Maths studies a good year or more before her GCSE. But then it does have to be said that my success and I did scrape a pass at Maths O level was due solely to the fact that my Maths teacher bet me ten shillings (a sizeable sum then) that I would fail.

My determination to prove him wrong was actually more powerful than the desire to extract ten bob from the gimlet-eyed clerical martinet.

With the benefit of decades of hindsight, I have realised that he probably dangled the bait in order to lure me to work harder rather than to profit from my ignorance. At the time I wasn't so sure.

Also, the modern GCSE candidate sits exams a good month and a half earlier than I did. Ours were in July and we got the results in August, as I recall.

So not only are today's examinees expected to know more, they are also expected to assimilate it half a term earlier.

Interestingly since I was 18, nobody has once asked me what my GCE results were. And I have never heard of anyone ever being asked to offer proof of their GCE results when they have been asked that question.

Now for the bad news. I have discovered that my reward for my daughter's hoped for progression to the sixth form is that I will have to pay over £200 for her to travel on the same school bus that she and her sister have travelled on for years and which is never full.

It will be cheaper therefore for us to clog up the roads with yet another car delivering children to school. And the bus will still be doing the journey with two less children.

Does that make sense? Welcome to the 21st century.