It has been a wonderful week which started with Holi on the field in lovely weather. It was such a wonderful occasion where, for the first time in a while, the children of various ages, alongside the staff and parents, were able to mix and share the celebration of Holi together. The number of parents that started the afternoon stood at the side but then were in the middle of the event, enjoying the interaction with everybody, covered in colours, were many. Thank you all for coming along, taking part and making great memories for the children and adults alike. We now have the footage from the drone and will very soon share a montage of the event with you.

We are now about to enter the last two weeks of the term and our Year 6 and Year 5 children will be going on a residential visit. Year 6 are first, visiting The Vedanta, near Lincoln, next week. Mr Kite will be leading the Year 6 visit so will not be around each morning after Monday. The following week, Mr Linnett will be going to PGL with the Year 5 children. Again, these are wonderful opportunities that we are so pleased to be able to run again. The children get so much from the activities.

Restorative Practice

Building Relationships, Improving Behaviour and Creating Stronger Communities

Every morning, when possible, I stand on the gate in the morning and I do it for a few reasons but one, overarching main reason – I care about you and your children and if you need to see me, I am here for you.

Whatever the job we do, there are always things that we need to get finished and it would be so easy in my case to take that 25 to 30 minutes each morning to get some jobs done. However, taking the time to connect with you and your children each morning is, for me, the most important and most valuable use of my time and an opportunity too good to miss. Fresh air aside, it is a chance to check in with you all (and children), to address any minor concerns. It is a great opportunity to sense how things are generally. I have always worked on the principle that if we discuss the minor points and deal with the smallest of worries, we will never have a big issue.

Linking this to Mark’s book, connect before content is this hugely valuable point. By connecting and developing relationships (or building them to use Mark’s words), we can then better discuss the ‘content’ of daily life in a more meaningful and collaborative way. This understanding of relationships really does help and supports something that ex professional footballer, Phil Neville said, “Being a good person is the most important thing”.

Let us all keep being good people. Let us all connect with each other, and then talk content. In the words of Prof. Damien Hughes, “We need to judge character rather than outcomes.” Imagine that in the world of education.

Connect before content

Mark Finnis

#OnlyConnect

Being a good person is the mort important thing.

Phil Neville

#BeKind

We need to judge character rather than outcomes.

Prof Damien Hughes

#Character

Images of the Week

Lunch and Payments 

We currently have £163.79  owed for lunches, a rise from last week’s £136.85. Please do keep on top of the payments and do your best to get into credit by Friday lunchtime – it would be great to have nothing owed in these updates.

When you book lunches, you may notice the new Summer Term menu. Both menus are currently on the page so you can book both the last week of term and for weeks in the summer term.

On Tuesday afternoon I received an email from our catering providers, Govindas, informing me of an imminent price increase. Govindas attached a letter for parents, as follows…

Dear Parent/Carer

Please see the below message from Govindas, our caterers. 

Please be advised that from Monday 18th April 2022 there will be a price increase to the cost of school meals. The current price is £2.20 for the main meal and a dessert. This will increase to £2.40. Although there was a slight increase last year due to the continued pressure on the cost of wholesale food and national salaries, we cannot avoid this price increase any longer. The impact of this increase will be an increase by circa. £12/term per pupil. 

It should be noted that a school meal at Govinda’s still provides excellent value for money. We will continue to offer an exciting and varied range of meals, which are both healthy and nutritious. All of our menus are developed in line with the nutritional standards set by the Schools Food Trust and the Government’s Food Policy in Schools. 

For our students in receipt of Free School Meals, the increase will be applied to the daily allowance. This will ensure they continue to have access to the main meal and dessert menu. 

We ask for your understanding of these price increases and fully appreciate that times are tough. Govinda’s catering remains committed to ensuring that your child’s school meal is value for money, healthy, well-balanced, and nutritious.

Yours sincerely

Mike Jones

Managing Director

Govindas Ltd

Girls’ Football League – Division 1

The girls played in the final week of fixtures on Wednesday evening, playing five matches against local schools. From previous rounds, the girls were sitting on top of the league so a successful evening would result in the girls progressing to Finals Day.

The weather was great and the games were all positive, well contested and full of action. The girls won the first three games comfortably with goals from various players. There were some good passes, link up play and effort from all, including a header that was celebrated by a few of the team rather than concentrating on the games. The penultimate game was drawn 2-2 before the final match, against the team challenging for the league. The team played well and won comfortably.

The organiser’s report:

Krishna Avanti v Hope Hamilton matches were great encounters with Kendra of Hope Hamilton making her debut by playing in goal and a fine job she did when shot stopping and distributing the ball to her teammates by throwing it out to them. Nimrit of Hope Hamilton had a wonderful performance defensively, intercepting the ball and clearing quickly and finding one of her players to set up attacking play.

Pia, goalkeeper of Krishna Avanti played extremely well, very safe hands when making a number of saves and went route one with powerful kicks from her hands and when taking goal kicks. A thoroughly entertaining afternoon with lots of good link up play, inter passing and moving, superb defending and lots of goal scoring opportunities. Well done to all the players.

Respect and Fair Play – Top Schools: Krishna Avanti and Whitehall – both 100% 

When we know the date for the Finals, we will let you know also.

Last week’s results and final table as follows:

  • Krishna Avanti 3 v 0 Whitehall
  • Krishna Avanti 2 v 1 Hope Hamilton
  • Krishna Avanti 3 v 0 Kestrel Mead
  • Hope Hamilton 1 v 3 Krishna Avanti
  • Whitehall 0 v 2 Krishna Avanti
  • Kestrel Mead 0 v 1 Krishna Avanti
  • Krishna Avanti 2 v 2 Whitehall
  • Krishna Avanti 2 v 0 Hope Hamilton
Team

Played

Won

Drawn

Lost

Goals For

Goals Ag

Points

Krishna Avanti

12

9

1

2

25

7

28

Hope Hamilton

12

6

2

4

15

11

20

Whitehall

12

5

2

5

16

14

17

Kestrel Mead

12

1

1

10

3

27

4

Dog Alert

During the Friday morning drop-off a parent informed me that his child was bitten by a dog whilst walking home. The overwhelming majority of dogs and their handlers are safe, responsible and not a threat, but please do be aware that this is not the case will all of them. The incident has been reported to the police but please talk to your children and be aware yourself. As mentioned, the majority of dogs and handlers are great and we do not want anybody to be scared of dogs, but to be cautious.

World Maths Day

On Wednesday it was Maths Day and a huge thank you to you all for engaging in it so well. The children, as always, threw themselves into the spirit of the day and I was very impressed with the imaginative, positive and in some cases cleverly simple way mathematics was shown in what was worn. I hope that the children came home and shared the learning from the Brainwaves Maths visitor. For me, to see the children, for example in Year Two, creating large cubes and sitting inside them, talking about their properties was pleasing. There were classes using canes and creating angles of various kinds and so much more.

The day brought mathematics to life and the children were all engaged and learning in a way they appeared to really enjoy. I was also pleased to see activities taking place such as writing a mathematical story, such as Ollie the Octagon who thought he was better than some others because he has more sides. The discussions between the children and abstract way that they were learning about all things mathematics was inspiring.

A big thank you to Miss Ali, our Mathematics Lead, for organising the day.

Year 4 Visit Bhaktivedanta Manor (and more)

Several classes have been on visits this week, blessed with good weather too. The week ended with the Year 4 children going to Bhaktivedanta Manor, Watford. The visit was part of their learning in PRE. The Manor was established in 1973 by His Divine Grace A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. The children had a guided tour of the estate including the farm, gardens and main house which includes the temple, theatre and founder’s quarters.

Mrs Bridgmohun joined Year 4 on the visit and reported that the children really enjoyed the visit and commented on how valuable the visit was. Mrs Bridgmohun also feedback that the staff at the Manor commented on how well-behaved, polite and positive the children are – something that is always feedback we are proud to hear.

Our Foundation Two classes visited Stonehurst Farm and Year 1 visited Evington Chapel. These visits have been enjoyed by the children and give real life experiences and understanding to the learning that takes place in class. As with the Year 4 children, the manner in which children engage and behave is something to be proud of.

Spring Music Concert

On Wednesday evening we hosted our first Spring Concert for a few years, an opportunity for our young musicians to play in front of a larger audience. Joined in the sports hall by parents, the children stepped up to the stage and played various pieces of music for the audience. A huge well done to all of our young musicians and thank you to Popi for organising it.

School App

A reminder to all that we have an App which links directly to our website, designed to make your access to the most used pages easier, quicker and more efficient. Many of you will already have it but those that do not, I hope this helps.

If you have a smartphone you can download our App from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store (Android) for FREE.

There are two ways to download the App:

1. Using your device (phone or tablet), For Apple go here  https://tinyurl.com/y9ad3j7u and Android go here  https://tinyurl.com/y7cssjwt then install, click on our school and sign up

2. Using your device (iPad, iPhone, tablet or Android phone), visit the relevant store as you would normally (Apple Store or Google Play) and search for “Maged School” you should find an icon when you scroll through that looks like the image to the right, click on it and install it. Then click on our school and sign up.

1-Minute Maths App

Another App that is free and looks to be quite good is 1-minute Maths by White Rose Maths. It is aimed at Key Stage One children but for any children that would benefit from building confidence, it may be worth trying it.

We’ve just released the latest version of our app – now including two brand-new topics!

You Said, We Did…

Thank you to those that have completed the questionnaire so far. There have been no entries since last week and only 47 entries to date. It would be appreciated to get as many responses as possible so that we have more confidence in what has been shared. Please do take a few minutes to complete the questionnaire if you have not done so already.

After the Easter break we will aim for a face to face Coffee Morning and in the first one, look at the responses from the questionnaire and specifically, areas that we can improve on. For example, seven response disagree that ‘This school responds well to any concerns I raise‘. We can explore that as an area and work to ensure that regardless of any concerns, everybody agrees that the response is an appropriate and positive one.

Save the date: Thursday 5th May at 08:15

Thank you. We will continue to listen, work hard and do all we can to ensure Krishna Avanti Primary School is the best it can be for all (children, parents and staff).
So ,,pure environmental school all over
My child loves going to school and she is always looking forward to it. Though her class have had a few changes recently in terms of Mr Wheat leaving and then being taught by various teachers her experience had been joyful. All the teachers that led the class until Miss Ferdush joined did a brilliant job and I wouldn’t say my daughter missed anything much. So very well organised. The only area I would like to be improved on is more feedback of what topics are going to be covered in a school year in range of different subjects so we are able to help at home too. I am not sure if this is already on the website and I don’t know where to look for. Apologies if this the case please guide me.
Thank you very much for the positive feedback and with regards the different subjects at school please use the following link, as share previously. http://avanti.org.uk/kapsleicester/curriculum/
It touched me the other day to see how Mr Linnet helped my child when she was rushing to entering the school gates in the morning and struggling to carry her Chelo and her school bag, he ensured she is comfortable carrying both. Wonderful staff with good sense of humor. To describe Krishna Avanti in few words would be a great school with lots innovative ideas to make learning fun, very accommodating, lots of positive vibes and happy faces!
Thank you. We will continue to listen, work hard and do all we can to ensure Krishna Avanti Primary School is the best it can be for all (children, parents and staff).

School lunches are inconsistent. Feedback from kids have been that the standards have dropped. Resulting in them not eating properly and being super hungry after school. I feel there is still work to be done in ensuring that standards are consistent.

We check this on a daily basis and various staff have a school meal. If you would like to get in touch so we can talk specifically about which days and meals and we can then work on specific issues. Mr Kite takes many opportunities, whether eating with the children or in passing at lunch, to ask how the meals are to specifically check children’s views and their satisfaction with meals and the consistent message in person is a positive one. 

We are very happy with this school, everything about it from great leadership, great teachers and there’s always a positive vibe. I’d like to share my father’s pride (who’s no more) his view of this amazing school….he had a busy routine daily with swimming and long walks. Keeping fit & spending quality time with his grandchildren was his thing. He used to pick up my eldest son on Tuesdays (youngest was at nursery at the time) and sometimes on those days, if any of his friends asked my dad if he wanted to make other plans with them, my father proudly used to say with the biggest smile: “ No thank you because today is my turn to pick up my grandson. ” I have never heard anyone say that with so much pride. He always experienced positive and happy vibes just like us, each time he walked through those gates & I am really happy my dad got to be a part of this school too before he passed. With covid and now the sadness about Ukraine, there’s always this school as our pillar of strength, hope, and kindness, so a big thank you for everything that you do, always much appreciated, from myself & behalf of my family.

Thank you for that lovely feedback. We care very much about the children and also the family and wider community. Taking time to share this means so much to us. 

Mr Kite is fantastic and leads by example, we will always see him in the morning with a great big smile this makes such a difference and why Krishna Avanti school stands out.

We have a wonderful staff who have some wonderful smiles and we will continue to (smile). We smile so much in part, due to the wonderful relationships with our child and parent community. We have shared in previous posts about how smiles can help in many ways. Thank you. 

Big concern after chasing information regarding raising money for PE sports equipment. My child never received any updates of bands or parents didn’t receive any updates as to where the funds are gone or total funds raised. Chasing and emailing for updates staff seem unresponsive . Not ethical to ask to raise money then avoiding updates or children recognition! My child was very upset and still asks why teachers are not saying anything.

We are very sorry that you missed this communication. Click here to read the Friday Update of 25 Feb 2022 where this information was shared. £2152.55 was raised in total and the school share of £1062.33 will be actioned shortly. Bearing in mind the communication was received by the organisers on the 25th February and we announced the amount raised on the same day, the timescales are reasonable. Because we do so much (such as the CORAM Life visits in and World Book Day, some appreciation that follow ups and orders will take time, would be appreciated. We will try harder though. Apologies that this has evidently been unclear for some of you.

Great teaching and the school is being led and managed well. Communication is still an issue and although there are endeavours to improve unfortunately the issues are continuous. I would expect emails/letters/newsletters to be checked for spelling and grammar before being issued. Unfortunately nearly all communications have errors which shows there has been little/no improvement in this area.

As an educational establishment the communications should be perfect, although occasional errors will happen.There will be times when communications are sent under pressure, however the errors should be very few and far between. Thank you for your raising of the issue – we will give this greater focus to improve the communications. Please do come back to let us know whether it has improved or not. 

This school is a great school two of my children attend this school in different year groups and they love it. The only thing is we all know there is parking issues but parents need to be mature and handle this from every parents view instead of being children and fighting over parking. Those that come in with parking permits they have valid reasons otherwise they wouldn’t be parking inside , when I come and park inside as I have a valid permit, once I step out of my car after parking I am being stared at in such a horrible manner by parents that are queued up like I have done something wrong. Also when some people without permit has parked in our bays it does make it difficult for us with permits as we are left with no parking.

We are pleased to know your children love the school. 

With regards parking, there is a section in this week’s update about parking and we hope all use their integrity to do the right thing. 

I think the school really need to work on the communication levels. For example if there is a change in a week where children have to wear pe kits. The children tell us one thing, the reception something else, email something else. If children are required to change or bring uniform for additional days this needs to be fed back to parents. Even when homework changes children are not shown correctly which results in them not knowing what to do. Please work on your communication, parents are more than happy for changes that give our children opportunities but abit if notice and clarity is much needed. I’m a full time working parent and changes at the last minute really does not work for me.

This is a fair point and something we have spoken about recently. Expect to see an improvement. Thank you. 

A fantastic school, very friendly and approachable staff. I feel I have made the right decision for my son. I would highly recommend Krishna Avanti to other parents. Thank you for everything you all do and the dedication to always do better for the children.

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.

School should start drive through in the morning as it makes a difference with parents who has to start wrk early and avoid traffic in the morning. I agree walking is really good for children. When weather is dry is good to walk school but when it’s wet and windy it’s difficult with 2 kids to walk school.

We have mentioned before, the many issues with allowing cars to drive in. A reminder to all that the police have stated they do not want cars driving in as it has an effect on the traffic on the A47 which causes them issues with emergencies. We do appreciate the difficulties for all and continue to hope that drivers will be considerate and obey the Highway Code. Sadly some do not, such as those that park on the zig-zags and turn in the entrance.

My child started school in Sept 2021 in FS2. I am pleased with my choice of school and I think my child will thrive here.

The variety of subjects and topics she has covered so far has been a pleasure to hear about. I would definitely recommend this school to fellow parents.

One area that I feel could be improved upon is the introduction of the way the school operates to parents of children new to the school. There are many tasks for parents to keep up with that I feel we had to figure out on our own, or were kindly informed of by parents with kids in older classes. Let me be clear, I’m aware the website has all the links and information to these areas, but I personally would have felt more prepared with a ‘heads up’ letter with all these topics in one communication letting us know that this is what parenting a child at Krishna Avanti Primary School entails. One aspect, as a new parent, that I was especially pleased with was the initial zoom conference that detailed what our FS2 children would be learning and what we could do as parents to help them. I am proud to say my child attends Krishna Avanti Primary School!

It is pleasing to hear about the positives and how children thrive. For the ‘new to school’ points, that is useful to know. In the new year we are looking to restart the Workshops for Parents and will explore possibilities for similar opportunities, especially for new parents.

I am so happy with this schools. When people ask me which school is yours boys going I probably say krishna avanti this is the best school.. When my son come home tell me all the pre stories that makes me feel so good. My odder son got some health issue. But I always got support from the school.!!!! Thank you

Very welcome.

I think there needs to be more staff to offer SEN support as Mrs Carillo is very busy and doesn’t get much time to carry out the SEN activities and that worries me. My son needs additional support and this is not always available.

The number of staff at Krishna Avanti Primary School matches the recommended number for both the children and need. Teachers are well trained and contrary to belief, are very capable of teaching a class of children alone. We do have some Teaching Assistants to support where it is needed.

Extremely pleased with my child’s progress at this school. Happy with e teaching and communication

Thank you

I am really happy with my child’s progress so far. I really feel proud when my child sings krishna prayers. My girl is in foundation stage. Teachers and staff are kind and helpful. I would highly recommend this school to all.

my child is in FS this year, i have seen major transformation just in few months. Not only educational but in every curriculum activities also. I am genuinely satisfied with school atmosphere, food, study programs and so on.. I have heard before, “ kids are not allowed to take packed lunch, yours will might get struggling.” Honestly saying, i am shocked that mine is trying and eating so many things in school which i tried hard to feed her. KEEP IT UP guys, You deserve much more appreciation!!!.

We want all to enjoy school and give our best. A broad and balanced curriculum is our aim, along with a  great opportunities to learn vital social skills. Thank you for your kind words.

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 being 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.

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.

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.

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.

Thank you. We will continue to listen, work hard and do all we can to ensure Krishna Avanti Primary School is the best it can be for all (children, parents and staff).

Thank you very much for your continued support. A reminder that all school events are on our calendar which can be seen below and in the first tab when you hover over ‘School Life’ on the main website page. 

Yours sincerely   

Mr Kite

Principal

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