Back to School, Back to the Madness: TheSchool Whatsapp chats

Well, it’s official. School is back and so are the school WhatsApp groups otherwise known as the wildest corners of the internet.

Within minutes of term starting, someone’s little darling has “lost” a jumper (with their name stitched in bold letters, of course) and suddenly we’re all deputised into Bag Police, rummaging through lunch crumbs to check.

And let’s not forget the water bottles. Apparently, these things sprout legs and wander off the moment a teacher blinks.

Then the real entertainment begins - the complaints.

Someone is unhappy with the lunch menu, someone else is furious about the pick-up lane, and don’t even get me started on the weekly debate over homework. Honestly, these groups should come with a mute button that sends out an auto-reply: “Noted. Good luck.”

And just when you think you’ve survived the WhatsApp circus, you’re stuck in the other great Dubai tradition: school traffic. A 20-minute drive morphs into a one-hour epic saga. You inch forward, sip lukewarm coffee, and contemplate whether it’s too early to scream into a pillow.

But hey, that’s back-to-school life. The chaos, the noise, the lost property, the gridlock. We love to hate it… but let’s be honest, we’d miss it if it wasn’t there. Maybe.

// Rhea Morrison