We are well into the second week of school and my son, apparently an angel at school, has a complete transformation when he leaves the school gate and enters the family home. All that energy kept at bay during the school day is released beyond imagination at home where the jumping, singing and talking have reached levels well above the usual, which let me tell you were already considerable to start with.

So they say he’s adjusting to the new school and his friends have similar behavioural patterns, he will calm down in a few weeks… I just hope our sofa will survive through this.

Yes, the sofa is his favourite climbing frame come launchpad at the moment! There is always the great outdoors, I know! Unfortunately we are going through a patch of rainy weather so climbing at the park and running on the beach are out.

After all what is a storm at home when it is all sunshine at school? His teachers have come up with a golden time routine, which is great to get children settled in the transition from the playful environment they come from to proper schooling. Every kid had to draw their own passport size picture and attach it to the window drawn on the wall, by this window there is the image of a giant happy sun and a grey sad cloud connected by a colourful rainbow. The kids who pay attention and are well behaved get to put their picture on the sun, those who are less responsive go on the cloud and the idea is to make their way to the sun via the rainbow route by the end of the week. The system works both ways, so kids might do very well in the early stages and fall to the rainbow and eventually to the cloud during the course of the week.

The reward is half hour of their favourite activity at the beginning of the following week.

So far it’s been all sunshine for us apart from a brief slip to the cloud on Monday when my animal lover son decided to share with everyone the verse of the owl while the teacher got all 27 children to be quiet. Terribly disappointed to have fallen, he did his best and made it to the rainbow by the end of the day. However the rainbow road is a long one and it’s taken him two days to reach the sun again!