So yesterday morning I rang OD’s house in the morning to check that she was up and getting ready for school. She wasn’t. Her Mum was nagging. OD was ignoring her. I spoke to her. She hung up. I rung back. She hung up again. You know, the usual stuff – but of course at the moment things are all the more urgent and important than ever before. She promised her Mum she’d be in by break time (she said lunchtime to me).

At five to two this afternoon, I got a text message: ‘I’ve just been told I’m not getting entered for any exams and I had a row with Mr Early [the Headmaster]. I don’t care what the school says, I will do my fucking exams’.

Oh nooooooooo, thought I. She’s got in at lunch time again and the Head has told her to go home. I texted her back: ‘How? Where? It is his decision whether your name is submitted to the exam board or not, not yours. If does not enter you, you can not sit them’.

She replied: ‘Well I’m still coming to school and doing all my coursework even though he told me to get out. as if it’s all done I can sue him for still not letting me sit them’.

I texted back: ‘If he says no, you are stuffed. Why do you think I have been in panic mode the last two days?’ Of course, by this point I felt like I was having a panic attack. My own stress levels shot through the roof. What the fuck can be done now? I thought it best to speak to the Headmaster myself so I rang him and left a message with his secretary asking him to call me back. ‘Are you still at school?’, I texted OD. Thirty minutes later came the response: ‘Yes’.

When I spoke to her this evening she was still angry but it transpired that I had misinterpreted her messages. She had gone to see her Head of Year to ask if she could take her outstanding mocks and was told that she wasn’t being entered and so she if she is going to attend classes she should just sit at the back and relax. OD then stormed off to the Headmaster’s office who, according to her, “shouted at me because I wasn’t wearing my blazer. He just talked to me like I was dirt”. Well… who can blame him? She then advised me that she’d canvassed five of her teachers who all said that if she did the outstanding coursework they felt she’d do well in the exam and would therefore be recommending that she did sit the respective GCSEs.

So – is all lost yet or is she still in with a chance? To be honest, my nerves are shot to bits at the moment. The stress levels are mullering me. Will she get up for school in the morning or will she not? Does the Headmaster mean what he is saying or does he not? Can she pull it out the bag or can she not? I feel like I’m living in a fucking cliff-hanger and it’s not a place I like being.