THE world can be a scary place when you are rising five.

It's bad enough being dragged screaming to the school gates for the first time, without the additional trauma of watching your Mum desert you with a wheelspin-start of her Chelsea tractor.

Suddenly, you're alone, with just a lunchbox full of e-numbers and an asthma inhaler for company.

You turn slowly to face a schoolyard packed with chavs in baseball caps and tracksuits, the uniform for our times.

Unblinking eyes are checking your trainers out to see if they're up to snuff, and scanning your pockets for signs that you may be carrying a Game Boy worth nicking at lunchtime.

Now, you may be a stranger to the notion of potty training, and you may not be able to hold a knife and fork (who needs them when there are Chicken McNuggets in the world?).

But it's rubbish to suggest Mummy didn't give you the essential skills for starting school in the noughties, because you've grabbed your mobile and texted "HELP!" before anyone can say "Wayne Rooney is my role model".

Such is school life as it is lived now, apparently. David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, reckons kids really are heading off to school without basic social skills.

Some of the stuff he sees as new and outrageous, I might take issue with. Poor toilet training, for example. I do remember at my infant school there used to be an underwear drawer for people who had little "accidents" in class. Mind you, the shame never died, for you or for your mother, if you ever had to borrow a pair of monster interlock knickers from teacher.

Cheeking teacher was not unknown in my day, either; but I seem to remember that Miss had enough control to ensure that such things only happened once.

Not knowing how to use a knife and fork is a bit much, I must admit; but where I think Mr Hart really hits home is with the observation that kids don't say "please" or "thank you" any more.

Isn't this really the key? My mother chanted the mantra "if what?" throughout my pre-school years, every time I asked for something without saying please. She also used to say: "I want never gets", and when I discovered she meant it, I started to learn some manners.

Isn't a basic lack of courtesy - a lack of consideration for others - at the root of all the problems highlighted by Mr Hart?

Because if you're not taught to say please or thank you, how are you ever going to realise that other people have needs and feelings independent of your own?

Wayne Rooney was recently banned from a national school sports event because of his reputation for ill-mannered spitting, swearing and disrespect for authority.

I don't know about his potty training regime or whether or not he can use a knife and fork. Possibly he may be able to do so with his feet, said by some to be the place where his intellect is lodged.

But with the rest of Wayne's qualities, he does not need to be invited into schools. He is already providing an ideal role model for the kind of society for which we are laying down foundations.

Updated: 09:26 Wednesday, May 04, 2005