At what age do children become teenagers? How many wheels does a tricycle have? What do you get if you multiply 100 by 100? What vitamin is associated with oranges?

There are no catches. Answer correctly (no conferring), and you could win a set of horror books, a cycle helmet, a home computer or a fabulous Haliborange lunchbox.

These “competitions” appear in the Autumn edition of Parents+Schools, and are presumably included so that this free, glossy DfES magazine doesn’t come across as a stodgy, government information sheet.

And stodgy it isn’t. Admirable articles about bullying, equality, school lunches and literacy are presented in a bouncy style that should override all but the most intractable cases of parental attention deficit disorder while at the same time fulfilling a valuable public information function.

But can the same be said of the item that fills the whole of page 22? “Win pound;1,000!” it says. And all I need do is solve a simple puzzle. There’s a list of “ten prizes won recently in consumer competitions” - words such as “cash”, “camera” and “cruise” - nine of which appear in a grid of letters. By finding the nine I must identify the missing prize, write it on the coupon along with my details, and send it to a PO box in Aylesbury for entry into a draw.

No catches here either. Only some small print at the bottom of the coupon saying that I might be sent details of “a variety of further interesting opportunities from reputable organisations” unless I write to “Department CDM” at an address in Cambridgeshire.

The entire item appears to be the work of a north London firm called Chartsearch Ltd. After a bit of rooting around, I identify Chartsearch as “a leading competition newsletter publisher”. I also learn that it sells information about folk who enter its own “competitions” to the producers of junk mail (“Players are 55+ and married”, have “a household income of between pound;10K-pound;15K” and are “responsive to direct mail”).

All good, clean, legal fun, I’m sure. But why does the DfES feel it appropriate to print such material? The first six answers to arrive on my doormat