The teacher on yard duty rang a brass hand-bell and the seething schoolyard sprang towards the closed school doors. Matilda instantly joined the noisy river of children, as if a week had already trained her reflexes and this was all old hat. Turning in the current she waved to me, a smile on her face which radiated her still fresh excitement that she was a part of this system. I watched her flow away beneath the clean blue sky, happy for her joy, but sad that these steps are the formal beginnings of her independence.

The cogs churn on, for and not for the child.