The high school entered the fray after the Spring bank holiday Monday with four days of so-called SATS, which are nationwide tests in maths, science and English for Year 9 pupils. Our Junior school went through a similar process the following week with its Year 6 youngsters.

For older pupils the pressures are now bound up with GCSEs at both Ordinary and Advanced levels. These will continue right through until the last week of June, which has always seemed to me a cruel imposition.

Revising is never easy but how much more difficult when the days are long, there's cricket on the green, being outside is more fun than being cooped up indoors and the sun invariably chooses to shine. But that's the way it's been for decades and presumably no adjustments are in the pipeline. So spare a thought for the teenagers now going through this ordeal and half a thought for their parents.

• Here's a five-point questionnaire which parents of school-age children may care to address. What is a drug? How do drugs work? What do

drugs look like? What are young people's drug use? How do we respond?

I confess to a very limited knowledge of this territory and I suspect many parents would be with me.

Tonight at Fakenham High School the police will be holding a master class on drugs to enlighten anyone who wishes to be better informed.

Doors are open at 7pm and all are welcome to just turn up and find out. It's sure to be an enlightening experience.

• Creative Arts East has been going through a difficult few months with cuts to its grant from the Arts Council providing the major cause of anxiety.

Recent indications have been more positive and certainly the current programme of shows around our village halls seems to be secure. We saw a performance of The Polish Play at Whissonsett and were bowled over by the charisma of the four cast members from a company based in Farnham, Surrey.

The theme centred around a young Polish girl coming to England to work and the trials she experiences. Accompanied by her overbearing – but charming – father, the two of them reminisce, laugh, cry and even recapture memories of the 1974 World Cup, when the Poles managed to thwart England's bid to qualify thanks to the heroics of their goalkeeper.

I asked the Polish actress what had happened to this iconic player and she said he had become Minister of Sport back in her home country. Entirely appropriate.

Whissonsett Village Hall, by the way, was absolutely packed as it has invariably been whenever Creative Arts East drops by. Long may that be so.