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Only this week David Cameron got all tough talking about making kids to stand up when a teacher comes into the classroom.

Ooh, respect, hard lessons and stuff. That’ ll do it, Dave.

Nice idea. It would be lovely if we could have the respectful and hardworking next generation we want just by bucking up our ideas and not being a nation of hoodie hugging pussies.

At first I didn’t give it much of a thought beyond nodding “oh yes”. For an instant I could hear chairs scraping on classroom floors as a tall figure filed the doorway, back when things were good.

But only minutes later I heard something that made me stop and think again. Something I’d love soundbite specialist Cameron to have heard.

I was at a coffee morning for parents whose children use the services of a local special needs outreach team, my son among them.

One of the women – a granny with custody of her son’s lad – told a harrowing tale.

She was explaining the reason the 12 year old doesn’t enjoy French lessons. He hates the way the rest of the children are out of control. She explained how he told of his teacher weeping as pupils – children who in some cases still require a booster seat in the car – taunted her and took photos up her skirt until she fled the room.

This grandmother in her seventies then told how these same kids terrorised her, her husband and their boy. They pelted them with eggs and stones, menaced the neighbourhood and generally made themselves obnoxious. The family were fearful of leaving their home.

“I know some of the kids, although they pull their hoods up so it’s hard to tell. The mother of one is a nice woman, they live in a big house. I bet she doesn’t know what he’s doing,” she said.

She went on to talk about how adult football supporters would come back from a game and get sport from bullying these same youngsters as they kick cans and victims around the nearby play park.

Shocked, we could only urge her to call the police and the school as often as necessary. But the advice sounded lame and left us chilled.

I wonder if Mr Cameron insisting these kids leap to their feet in class would make this gran and grandson or his French teacher feel any better.

I haven’t the slightest idea what the answer is, but I’m fairly certain standing up or otherwise isn’t it.

It’s only Easter – a two-week break – but already dread is mounting about the long summer holiday, yet several months away.

And it’s not just me. A great many parents find the long holiday difficult, expensive and the source of huge stress.

We like nothing better than spending time at play with our kids. In fact, we’d love to do that but our bosses and bank balances won’t let us. It’s just not possible.

Instead we cobble together child care, pay for expensive summer schools or, if we can, take the bank-breaking decision to stop working for the period. Grannies are bullied into babysitting while work-at-homers battle on in the face of bored and fed-up offspring.

So the notion of getting rid of the long summer holiday and replacing it with more shorter ones is certainly welcomed by this parent. I’m not suggesting that teachers do more hours, just that the hours they do work are spread out better. And neither do I think that teachers are there simply to run camps to dump children in so parents can skip off gleefully to do something else.

The reality is work must be done and children must be educated and cared for. Equally leisure must be taken in order that the other things can be done properly.

But good heavens, teachers, your six-week holiday cannot be sacred. Plans are being discussed to introduce five eight-week terms separated by more, shorter, breaks: Plans that seem to make a huge amount of sense.

However, the National Union of Teachers disagrees and is willing to go to great lengths to protect this “essential” break.

Their resolution states that “demands on teachers are so high during term-time that the longer summer break is an essential factor in a teacher’s management of excessive workload and work stress”.

That sound the NUT members can hear isn’t support up and down the country, it’s hollow laughter from parents who are equally familiar with “excessive workload and work stress”. What about us?

We want to spread the holiday childcare throughout the year; we want to be able to spend time with our families year round, not just in an enforced lump in the summer.

Who says three terms is the best way of doing things anyway? Isn’t it just that it’s the way we’ve always done it, from back in the day when fewer mums had to work and kids were far freer to spend the days roaming and den-building with their pals?

Things change and so should we. Come on teachers, you do a great job and we want to work with you, but clinging on to your six-week holiday like a child with a toy isn’t doing you any favours.

A note came home from school the other day about uniform. It referred parents to the relevant page in the handbook about what was and wasn’t cool for school.

It stated that pupils aren’t allowed to wear “denim clothing; coloured shirts; jumpers/sweaters with stripes or logos; hooded tops with logos; round neck sweaters which do not allow the school tie to be visible; baggy trousers; trainers; combat jackets; full length coats; baseball-style caps; low cut tops; cropped tops; immodestly short skirts; fashion belts; fashion jewellery; shorts; tight clothing; skinny jeans/trousers”.

Anyone know how short is immodest? I believe it was more than six inches in my day if measured while kneeling from floor to hem.

The whole thing took me back. To pupils school uniform is a challenge. Once we’d grown out of trying to cultivate the grubbiest cuffs and collars, we moved on to more subtle customisation.

Apart from ever shorter skirts (turned-over waistband anyone?), there were badges on the back of lapels, fat and fatter tie knots, pretty cardis, earrings, socks pulled up like stockings, skirts hobblingly tight, coloured buttons, Doctor Who scarves and laces with jolly beads on them.

So, it seems, nothing much has changed. I wonder how much energy has been expended over the years by school staff and parents trying to impose uniform rules and pupils bending them like fury.

Maybe we should put that energy into something more worthwhile, like teaching. What do you think?

The arguments for school uniform start with money – all pupils are equal. Theoretically yes, although anyone who was ever a pupil will know that’s not true. Look to shoes, pens, gadgets, coats and bags and differences are clear.

Uniforms instil a sense of identity and work ethic. Apparently there are studies that show this. And yes to an outsider it seems so, but surely a resentfully and badly worn tie must do the opposite.

My son’s school say safety is a factor – it’s easy to see if there’s a stranger in the midst. On the other hand some say that as soon as you put a teenage girl in a school uniform she’s the possible target of unwanted attention whether she knows it or not.

So, as the world turns onward and changes make flexibility and ‘the individual’ much more significant. If possibilities grow endlessly and the world is the oyster for our children then why should we care if they dress the same as their peers?

I care that my kids wear school uniform because – and perhaps the main reason for me – it makes my life so much easier. We all know what they’re going to leave the house wearing so we can save our energy for arguments about other things.

As for the rest, most of that stuff about pride, identity and enthusiasm for work comes from good teachers and a well-led school first, what the children wear and how comes second.