17 things you need to know about primary school fêtes

The summer fete is a highlight in every primary school's calendar, but beware the teddy stall...

1. You'll spend hours clearing all the unwanted birthday presents, unloved teddies and outgrown toys out of your understairs cupboard to donate to the toy stall, only for your child to come home with an ever larger pile of 'treasure.'

2. On the day of the fete, you're a complete embarrassment to your Key Stage 2 child – until they run out of money, at which point suddenly they love you more than anyone else in the whole wide world.

3. The fete will inevitably coincide with a major sporting event that rules out 99.5 per cent of fathers from manning the stalls.

4. You quickly learn that face painting and Mr Whippy ice creams really don't mix. Although the combination does make for some pretty amazing technicolour bathwater... 

5. You find yourself drawn as if by magnetism to the Pimm's stall, but you can't quite get over the fact that drinking on school premises feels all wrong. 

6. Cake stall economics just don't add up; you spend a tenner on ingredients, and a whole day baking your specialities, and then pay to buy your own cakes back again.

7. You think you've been well organised in taking a trip to the cash machine beforehand, but end up running a complex book of IOUs because none of the stalls have change for your £20 note.

8. You covet the rather nice looking bottle of bubbly on the tombola, but end up winning a bottle of fluorescent cherryade and a box of out-of-date chocolates. 

9. Sunny day? You decide to wear your white linen trousers to the fete, but instead of looking like a picture of summery elegance, you accidentally sit on your child's leftover, ketchup-slathered hotdog. 

10. Beware the 'adopt a teddy' stall. See that life-size neon green monstrosity with suspiciously matted fur? It's coming home with you... 

13. There is no competition more ferocious than the teachers versus parents tug-of-war. 

14. Your child becomes all coy and giggly when they see their teacher running a stall. Miss, at school, on a Saturday, wearing jeans? It contravenes the natural order of the universe.

15. Organising the rota for your class's stall requires nerves of steel, endless patience, superior timetabling skills and a Masters degree in Diplomatic Relations. And why doesn't anyone ever volunteer for the tidying up slot?

16. However much money you take to the fete, it will never be enough. 

17. Three weeks after the event, the raffle tickets your child brought home to sell are discovered, slightly dog-eared, at the bottom of their school bag.