It’s been a long time since I was last in a classroom; since I whiled away the hours dreamily leaning on my elbow while sending rolled-up messages to my best friend, and giggling.

I wasn’t the most attentive student but somehow emerged with a handful of half-decent (half dire) qualifications.

You hear people saying they wish they’d paid more attention in school. I’ve never felt that way – until now.

Now, although I’m not physically back in the classroom, I’m faced with having to mentally return to school every night of the week.

‘work out the formula for the ‘nth’ triangular number: 1,3,6,10,15 etc…’ This maths question formed part of my 13-year-old daughter’s homework last week which she, understandably in my opinion, found tricky.

I hate to see her struggling, but I can’t help her. My maths is below infant level and my brain frazzles when faced with expressions like ‘what is x when y is 6.719?’ Then there’s history: “Muuuuum (why do children summon mothers in a way that sounds like a constipated cow?), can you tell me what happened after the French Revolution?

I couldn’t even tell her what happened during it, let alone before or after. All I remembered from school was that it happened in France.

And science. “How do you measure the rate of photosynthesis using elodea?”

All these things did, at one time, enter my brain, but somewhere along the way they’ve become dormant.

Some things have stayed with me, mostly about the subjects I liked: English literature and geography. I can still recite some of Wilfred Owen’s poems and lines from Macbeth; I can hold conversations about rainforests and tectonic plates, and I’m still fascinated by meteorology. But the rest has gone.

I can’t believe how much stuff I’ve forgotten – and I’m obviously not alone. I came across a book recently, ‘I Used to Know That – stuff you forgot from school’, with key facts from all the main subjects.

Flicking through it was like going back in time: atoms, elements, molecules, Disraeli, Gladstone, the Plantagenets, Pythagoras, improper fractions, mean, median and mode.

I could almost smell the science lab and hear our maths teacher explode with frustration.

It also jogged my memory and brought lost information flooding back.

It goes to prove that between all that sniggering and note passing, I must have paid some attention.

Having children re-educates parents. By the time they’re 16, I should be capable of passing a few GCSEs myself.