The discussion forums on Mumsnet give a no-holds-barred insight into thousands of parents’ minds, and the conversational hum around seasonal topics rises and falls. After observing the patterns for a few years, you can put together an alternative parenting calendar - something like the thematic French revolutionary calendar, which was split into periods including Vendémiaire (grape harvest), Brumaire (mist) and Thermidor (heat). But this time with more of a focus on nits.

Planning for children’s Christmas gifts begins on Mumsnet in high summer; pleas for conjunctivitis remedies peak around February; and conversations about campsites with lakes next to sandy beaches are thick on the ground in late spring.

So it is with primary school applications. Those who are confident in their choices usually get their forms in around Bonfire Night and say no more about it. But early January - butting up against the mid-January deadline in most local authority areas - is the time when the disorganised, indecisive and desperate must act.

It’s difficult not to feel sympathy for parents faced with what they believe to be awful choices 

Every year at this time, recurring themes pop up: “All the schools I want are oversubscribed - what should I do?”; “If I put down great but oversubscribed schools, isn’t the LA obliged to give us a place in one of them?”; and, “I’m going to have to put down a school I don’t like - will my child be alright there?” To which the answers, respectively, are: “Pick a banker and put it last in your choices”; “No, and if you take that approach you could end up with no school at all”; and, “Probably, and waiting lists are marvellous things.”

Those on Mumsnet who work in schools can become impatient with some of this, particularly the worries of parents who are concerned by poor Ofsted reports or below-average Sats scores. It’s difficult, though, not to feel a pang of sympathy for those few parents faced with what they believe to be a range of awful choices. In the main, they are not educational professionals; everything they know about schools is at least 15 years out of date; bad Ofsted reports can be seriously scary; and this is their baby and their education is one of the most important choices that they will ever make.

While we can feel pride in the UK’s primary schools overall and the vast majority of parents will get their first choice, let’s extend a little understanding to those taking their first steps into the wider world of real-life parenting compromises. They’ll soon be down at the school gates, chucking money into the bake sale tins with the rest of us.

Justine Roberts is founder and chief executive of Mumsnet.  She tweets @justine_roberts