One of my children will start a new school in September.

And while moving day is still three months away and I’ve yet to be added to any WhatsApp group (a sure sign in 2024 you’re committed to anything) I have had a letter asking for money.

Not for uniform, PE kit or even a scientific calculator - but instead spends for the school the headteacher makes clear bridges the gap where government funding falls woefully short.

A minimum donation is suggested, but the long and short of it is this cash-strapped haven of education will readily accept whatever we’ve got to spare.

School funds, I know, are nothing new. I remember my own parents receiving a request for a £5 donation years ago for my own school to cover extra curricular niceties budgets didn’t quite stretch to.

The critical difference today is this money is buying books or science lab equipment schools desperately need but can’t fund and not a sofa for the sixth form common room.

As I pondered how much it felt appropriate to send as the latest TV election debate hummed away in the background, I wondered what the candidates’ answers might be to my school donation dilemma if host Fiona Bruce had afforded me a question.

Because truth be told, despite the huge amount of election coverage I’ve dipped into over the last few weeks, I’m not sure I’m crystal clear on how any party exactly plans to improve my life or that of my family.

Last year my children missed a good number of school days to teacher strikes. So many in fact that I’d be facing a fine if I’d removed them for an equivalent number of days.

Substitute teachers for months on end - for core subjects - also not uncommon.

(Although a desperate yet heartfelt letter from one of our school’s headteachers dissipated that anger as they went into great detail as to the lengths senior teams were going to trying to keep secondary staff in front of classes).

But teacher’s pay, recruitment and school budgets appear to have slipped down the political agenda.

In fact add to that a lack of NHS dentists, our unreliable yet extortionate rail services, sewage in the seas, the housing crisis, whether any party can meet the costs of the current government’s free childcare policy and - the biggy - how to fix our social care problems.

Overflowing prisons, councils at risk of going bust and universities strapped for cash probably also require some focus too.

Instead with a week to go, the Conservatives are embroiled in a betting scandal threatening to overshadow a party already mired in Covid-19 and partygate problems while Labour has been left defending tax policies at every turn rather than spelling out exactly what they might do with the money itself.

Of course, while Brexit thankfully seems to have taken a back seat in discussions, small boats and immigration remain a hot topic for debate.

Yet I’m convinced the cost of living crisis, an incoming winter of high energy bills and low wages matter more to people right now than whether a plane really will ever take off for Rwanda?

With little time now until polling day, parties should be spelling out the policies that’ll improve people’s lives and exactly how they plan to put them into practice.

The scale of the challenge isn’t lost on anyone but quite how each party intends to deal with it I’m not sure we’re yet clear on?