MY grandson went back to school this week. I think the word "reluctantly" is appropriate. Like most seven-year-olds, Joe can think of a zillion things to do with his time other than the three Rs, which I assume are still being taught in school.

They might still be being taught, but one would have reason to doubt that much, if anything, is getting through, given the seriously damaging reports circulating in the national media.

One quoted a leading educationalist who expressed an opinion that the most recent batch of five-year-olds to enter mainstream schools were the most disruptive, unco-operative, badly behaved and, not to put too fine a point on it, "thick" in living memory.

Many couldn't talk properly, had no idea how to use a knife and fork and viewed the classroom environment as a cross between hell's waiting room and Stalag Luft III. The blame, he volunteered, had to be laid firmly at the door of uncaring parents, who had little or no communication with their children, sat them in front of the telly with convenience food to eat with their fingers or a spoon, and made no attempt to teach them manners or decent behaviour.

The result had led to anarchy in the classroom, with teachers struggling to contain crowds of mini-hooligans with little interest in learning anything at all except perhaps how to derail a train or vandalise cars, which they can soon pick up from their older siblings, anyway.

I don't know how much of this is an accurate, or fair, description of what is currently going on in our schools. I assume, like most people, that the situation must vary from school to school, area to area, throughout the UK, with the standards perhaps lowest in less well-off inner cities. I could be badly wrong, of course, as affluent areas are capable of producing wrong 'uns, though perhaps not in as many numbers as so-called sink estates where hope is one of the first casualties, along with "future".

I've always believed that teachers belong to a body of professionals grouped under the description "dedicated". They are like doctors, nurses, care workers, social workers, lifeboatmen and women and other rescue personnel. I had no idea they had to be trained in unarmed combat to survive a school term. My schooldays are long gone, but I can honestly say the incidents of pupil insolence were few and far between and always resulted in punishment, including the cane, which is no longer permitted, along with any other means of physical restraint or admonishment. Whether you believe this is a good thing or bad depends on your own view of the way our society is going.

Respect for law and order, other's property and physical wellbeing has been eroded to such an extent that we now have people, particularly the elderly, virtual prisoners in their homes.

If that educationalist is correct and parental supervision, or even interest, in a child's development is minimal, what chance has its teacher? Somewhere between none and zero is my estimate.