Following last week’s brutal introduction to local writing team Sophie Trott and Cara Jennings comedy series, episode two sees Ruby and Ernest visit Cherry Tree School – the ofsted-winning, all-baking, all-French-speaking primary that everyone wants to get in to.
The mums compete on who can do the best volunteering, and double bluff how bothered they are if their kids get in or not – they just want to help the community, right?
Look out for a brilliant musical number that could easily become a local parent anthem, too.
“The inspiration for this part of the story came from hearing tales of friends falling in love with certain schools and thinking that no other school would do,” says Sophie.
“We all know someone who’s suddenly started going to church in spite of being an atheist, just to get their child into a church school. In fact we recently heard of a vicar playing these parents at their own game, and getting them to do loads of volunteering – feeding the homeless, decorating the church, running the jumble sale, all in return for the stamp of approval for the school application.”
Cherry Tree isn’t a church school, but it feels (and looks) quite familiar. It also “seems like the kind of place where you could get ‘in’ with the school if you do the right thing,” chuckles Sophie, from first-hand experience of the primary bun-fight.
“Everything seems so heightened when you’re first applying to schools,” she says, of their comedy subject-matter. “Partly it’s because your child is so young, it doesn’t seem possible that anywhere would be good enough, hence the anxiety to get at least ‘the best possible’ place – whatever that may be.”
