Shed some light on the subject (again)

This is my light box. It arrived yesterday, along with my dawn simulator alarm clock, which after one morning getting up with it, seems to be quite effective.

The lightbox is the same as my brother has - he suffers with "S.A.D" - Seasonal Affective Disorder. My grandad did to some extent too. I mentioned previously that Corin had suggested that maybe I do too...so investment was made in one of these beasts - my brother swears by it in terms of how it has improved his symptoms. So we'll see how things go. Got to be worth a try because I am not seeing daylight at all at the moment.

Today was our visit from Ed Balls. Our kids did us proud, again! Due to delays during their day, the visitors did not arrive till 4.30 - to be fair, we did know this was going to be the case. The kids came back to school at 4.15, and stayed until 6.30. And to be fair to Mr Balls, he was fantastic with the kids. He really engaged with a group of kids playing basketball in our sports hall - spoke to everyone of them, shook their hands and even shot a couple of hoops. He then came and let our hairdressing students get the straighteners out on him, posed for photos with them all, spoke to them individually - they loved it. And then he met with 15 of our senior students - the prefect team and even though they were well over their 'scheduled time' and one of his support team was getting quite twitchy about this, he and Beverley Hughes (the minister who visited us in November) spent half an hour with the kids, did a question and answer session, showed humour and a frightening degree of openess with them.

I still don't agree with how many aspects of Educational policy have been handled and delivered in his time, but I have to confess to being impressed by him today, because of the way that he engaged with our children. I do now see him as a person, and someone who perhaps really does believe in what schools are doing. He was well prepared and congratulated us on our progress, and our success in the summer and gave us the acknowledgement that I think I wanted back in June, and September, about what our school means to us and why we continue to strive to improve. I'm glad he came. I'm just bloody knackered now!

Just a point to note - Ed Balls sat next to a student who's surname is Allcock. And at one point we had had Allock, Loynes and Balls all in the same room. Too much to take!!! Too many jokes :-)