Thank you to those that have completed the questionnaire so far. Various comments, ideas and views from parents, along with school’s initial responses to points  can be read below.

This will be updated as new comments come in and a link will be in our Weekly Update.

Thank you for taking the time to connect with us. If you have not yet completed the questionnaire this academic year, please do.

There is a discrepancy between the homework set between classes – some get a great deal of work set literally everyday for the next day and others don’t. Before covid when the kids had to do there work in their homework books it was so much better! Setting work on google classroom and not asking for evidence or simply asking to discuss the topic rather than write about it means my other child in year 1 doesn’t have the same practice compared to how much my older child had. Why is this work not set over the weekend instead so they have time and energy to do it?

Homework is on this year’s school development plan and something that we want to make very beneficial without onerous. We will explore this further and respond soon.

Why does yr 1 not have teaching assistants? I asked regarding this at the last parents evening??? Surely 1 teacher cannot appropriately manage that many kids in a class and give attention fairly to each child in a day?

There are two points to note here: there are a number of teaching assistance employed to work across the school and they are deployed depending on the needs of the children in the year group. This is also related to the age of the child. In the simplest terms, Younger children need more help than older children when for example tying laces and doing up their coats. For this reason in our earliest years at school, although not link specifically to a class, there are more teaching assistants (such as two for the two Foundation Two classes.

As the children get older and their general needs reduce, so do the number of teaching assistants – as a general rule we have two teaching assistance for the key stage one classes, where children are much better at putting on coats and shoes and other key activities. Moving into key stage two, there are again to teaching assistants, but for the eight classes; we would not expect these children to need help when getting dressed, tying laces and other key tasks.

You will appreciate that the teaching assistance are not there just to do up coats and tie laces and work very hard with the teachers in all of the lessons across the curriculum, as required. There are some additional teaching assistants to those already explained who work with specific children on specific tasks according to specific needs.

The second point to note is one that many parents possibly realised during lockdown: teachers undergo a great deal of training so that they are in fact able to be with classes of children all on their own to appropriately manage behaviour in a positive way and give the required attention to every child. I appreciate that can be very hard to imagine when having just one child (or a few) at home. When it is safe to do so and we can invite parents in again to experience life in a school today, you will be able to see how the art of teaching is not something that just happens.

There use to be a note written or at least a txt when a child had an injury at school? 

If a child hits their head you should receive a text, a note and be told by a member of staff at the end of the day. We deliberately have the three methods so that if one does not happen, you are still informed. If the child is fine to remain at school they will do and we will monitor them. All staff are first aid trained. This will be discussed as a reminder for all staff to ensure we follow the procedures.

If you need to cancel clubs on the same day- can you send txt messages instead please- those parents that work cannot check our emails every 5 minutes incase you’ve contacted us whereas a txt msg is received and read straight away.

Unfortunately the system we now have does not include text messages without additional payments. If clubs are ever cancelled on the same day we do appreciate that you may not pick up the message. We will explore our procedures for these instances and hope to improve this issue.

Please can you give more notice for things such as dress up days and school photos rather than 24-48 hours notice!!! Is becomes very very difficult sometimes as a working parent to organise things when you’ve been given very little notice. It seems that the school thinks that mums do not work and can drop what they are doing to sort the children out! I’m sure thats not the case but that’s how it feels, those of us who have demanding jobs like yourselves need notice to sort things out so we don’t let our kids down and they can fully take part in activities.

I expect all events to be on our school calendar on the website well in advance. There are occasions when we are invited with little notice and do accept to enable your children greater opportunities – this however should not be often. We have added the calendar to these updates (at the bottom). We will also work very hard to ensure that full details of events are shared in advance as we do very much appreciate the difficulties of finding things out late. Apologies wherever this has happened.

We genuinely could have not asked for a better start. Our son has settled in so well and we are extremely pleased. This school is great and I would highly recommend to ALL parents. To be honest, we have already recommended to parents with newborn babies and young kids (2 and 3 years old) to ensure that they at least come and see this school before exploring their options elsewhere! 

Keep up the excellent work and we look forward to better and brighter future.

Thank you, Such kind words make a positive difference. We will keep doing our best and strive for that very bright future.

parking for pickup is a really big issue (the morning drop-off is not though). there are vehicles littered all along the main road in undesignated spots. speaking to many parents, we are forced to due to to schedules/commitments. some parents may be lazy but other parents have to rush against time. if there were more after-school clubs, there would be fewer vehicles rushing to do pickups. last academic year, due to the staggered lockdown release, pickup times were split over two time points across different year groups (2:30pm and 2:45pm). i realise there may be some education rules and guidelines normally in place, but a similar setup would help reduce the rush of parked vehicles on the main road, which also would help safety. this is something i can easily compare with my memory.

please start the drive through drop off again! I appreciate with covid things have changed but the crowding and ramming at the end of the day at the gate on exiting the school does not adhere to social distancing and the kids are mixing now so its irrelevant anymore. Wouldn’t morning drop off work better like it use to and ease the terrible traffic caused by stupid parking outside the school?

Parking in all schools is problematic, even where purpose-built drop-off points are part of the build. It must be appreciated that there are more after-school clubs here at Krishna Avanti Primary School than most schools – I certainly am not aware of any school that does as many. Please also remember that staff volunteer their time without payment to give the children as much as they can. Regarding staggered finishes, complications that arise during the school day which during Covid, we got on with due to the huge need to help with social distancing. The flexibility and adaptability of staff able to help in different classes and year groups becomes harder with staggered times and all considered, the same finishing time works better for most, especially those parents with more than one child at the school.

We have received far more positive comments about the walk to drop off and pick up than we have from those preferring cars. We do it cruciate the issues with parking but the highways agency, the police, and local schools have strongly made the case for cars not being able to come in.

Please can the children be given butter with their bread at lunchtime? I have raised this 3 times, but nothing has been done and nor has anyone come back to me about it. Thank you

Apparently, spread should be restricted due to nutritional guidelines. However, I personally would want spread with my bread/roll and as long as in moderation (some people do put far too much on), I support the request. This has been raised numerous times and has resulted in spread being added to the jacket potatoes. We will continue to press the point on spread for bread. Thank you for your patience with this and let’s hope it changes very soon.

While Krishna Avanti has many positive points, it also has a few negative – just like any other school. I have personally recommended the school to a few friends and am aware they have moved to Leicester, specially to have their kids in the school. It is great that our children can worship and take darshan of the deities regularly and this instils devotional life in them from a young age. The prasad is fresh, hot and children are satisfied with options available. Thank you for allowing a safe environment for my child to flourish educationally and spiritually.

Thank you

With regards to the comment on bullying, there have been a few incidents with other children, one even involving a teacher, while the one with the teacher was dealt with by the school, the ones with the other children was not, and we as parents had to speak to the bully’s family and sort it out that way. I would have preferred for the school to get involved rather than having to take matters into my own hands, but that’s water under the bridge now – and hopefully, future incidents, should they ever arise, will be dealt with promptly by the school.

We would fully expect any unwanted behaviours are dealt with by school and always prefer parents not to go direct to other parents as it does not always finish well. Please always raise concerns, no matter how small, so we can ensure our issues are only ever minor.

the after-school clubs are so limited that we have not had any chance to get a space. my expectation was that these clubs would be available every day and that all children would have an equal opportunity to attend. such uncertainty also does not allow parents to plan in advance their work hours to pick up a child if they become enrolled to an after-school club. a possible solution is when the next round of clubs are announced, to prioritise those children who have had the least enrolment to any clubs.

Clubs are offered by staff free of charge and are run on good will. Whilst we aim to have a variety of choices, there is no way to ensure there is something every day. Throughout Covid we adapted what we did to enable us to still offer clubs safely. As we get back to mixing, albeit cautiously, opportunities and variety we hope will increase. There will not be a guarantee however as we are here to educate the children, not child mind them. That said, we are looking to appoint a member of staff with additional hours to run the Library Club again because we do want to help where we can and appreciate, whilst we are not a childcare service, parents do struggle with working commitments. I hope this can commence after Christmas.

My only concern or complaint is the lack of notice when there are events. The school should provide either a text or email 7 days prior to children dressing up or having the option not to wear uniform. I don’t feel the school takes into consideration that there are parents that work 40 hours a week and need notice for changes.

All events should be in the calendar and details made know to you are far as possible in advance. We have the online school calendar on the website and a message given internally last week was, “If it is not in the calendar then it is not an event that is happening.” We have added the live calendar to this weekly update (below) and we will endeavour to have all events in with details included. What we ask parents to do is, read the updates and check the calendar. We will not be sending out separate, specific reminders all of the time however, for that to work, we must ensure it is up-to-date.

Please note however that we do get invitations at very short notice and whilst sometimes such invitations result in a tight turn-a-round, we would rather accept them and give the children the opportunity. This should not be too often however so be assured, this will be an immediate aim to rectify.

There is so many cars have parking inside without any disability or any strong reason so why we not allowed like who have under 2 year kids and also I work in the evening and some shifts in the morning it’s very tight for me to pick up or drop off my kids and strat my duty if I have that facility as well so it can be very easy for me . There is no one coming outside to checkout who is parking there car in parking space many people taking disadvantage of this and like us who is really struggling they don’t have any facilities I just want to request on this please be fair with everyone thank you .

and

Parking is the biggest negative about this school. I do not know what reasons people have given but the people that are turning up in their cars, look fit as a fiddle – young and healthy?…as soon as the gates are open they are literally power walking to fetch their kids…some sort of check is required, and a random check now and then to ensure the people picking up with a car park space is the person named in the request for parking in the first place.

There are cars with passes and to get a pass, very good reasons must be given and evidenced. With the electronic barrier now, cars should not be able to enter without a fob. We are not going to share reasons for passes being given as that information is private and confidential. We will however look to check that cars are not getting in when they should not. The places for good exceptions are limited and I believe we are now at the limit so. 

I am very happy my child attends krishna Avanti as I have not seen a school like this before. The level at which my child is at I am very happy with his learning from when he started in foundation and the level he is at now in year 1. The school staff and teachers are very nice and helpful I would recommend krishna Avanti to anyone I know. I would like to thank you for the questionnaire.