Hare Krishna Dear Parents,

It is so lovely to see the kids back at Gurukula. They have settled in wonderfully and that is a credit to all of you. And amazingly we are doing great with punctuality!!! So a massive pat on the back there.

As we get into the new school year we wanted to give you an update of how the Gurukula is getting on, to talk to you about some of the decisions that were made over the summer and the plans that we have going forward.

So we’ll be having three online sessions, similar to how we did at the end of term last year. There is a session for each year group and if the majority of us can attend or designated year group meeting that will be best. If however you can’t make your session feel free to join any of the other ones. I encourage all parents to join these sessions. It is a perfect time to get the latest news and to ask questions or give comments.

Monday 21st September 6.30pm Year 1 and 2
https://meet.google.com/aqs-eamj-cvh

Hare Krishna

Dear parent,
Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I hope you and your family are well and the children are ready and eager to return to gurukula tomorrow. We are certainly all looking forward to seeing our wonderful gurukula families again and we also welcome the new children who will be joining gurukula tomorrow and their families.

Please ensure that your child arrives on time in clean uniform and with a labelled water bottle and healthy snack ( it must not contain nuts).

I wish to take this opportunity to let you know the staffing arrangements for this year:
Admin/Business manager: Mother Tulsi Seva
Year 1 and 2: Mother Adi Ganga
Year 3 and 4: Mother Swati
Year 5 and 6: Mother Gunacuda
Teaching assistant: Mother Gaurangi Lila
Cover teacher and interventions: Mother Gopal Nayika
Care taker: Krsnanama prabhu
Music teacher: Loka Bandhu prabhu
Lunchtime supervisor: Mother Raja Vidya
Volunteer lunchtime helpers: Mother Bhargavi, Mother Michaela

The teachers, auxiliary staff and I have been busy preparing for the start of the new academic year and have many exciting learning opportunities planned for our classes including the gardening project I wrote about previously. . .

Mother Tulsi Seva will be there to greet you all at the gate every morning .We respectfully remind you that due to procedures in place to minimise the risk of Covid, no parents should come inside the school gate at present. A cheerful farewell from mum or dad can help a child feel happy to enter and you can always remind your child that you will see them soon if they seem a little anxious.

For this year, the sports lessons with Josh will be on Tuesdays for KS1 and Wednesdays for KS2 and this will begin next week.
The teachers will be arranging ‘meet the teacher’ sessions with their classes in the next week or so to talk to the class parents about expectations and give you an opportunity to have any questions you might have answered.In the meantime, if you need to speak to your child’s teacher, please make an appointment for after school via the office.

We hope and pray for the blessings of Sri Sri Radha Gokulananda upon the gurukula to allow us to work in partnership with you to give your child the best Krishna conscious education we possibly can,

Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada,
Gunacuda dasi

Hare Krishna

Please find attached a list of the main health and safety procedures the gurukula will put in place for September. A detailed risk assessment document will be sent to you in the next few days.

Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Your servant,

Gunacuda dasi

COVID health and safety procedures

Hare Krishna

Please find attached the full risk assessment for opening on 2nd September. Please pay particular attention to the temporary drop off and pick up times to help maintain the safety of the children.

Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada

Gunacuda dasi

H&S Policy

Sept COVID Risk Assessment

Hare Krishna

Further to my earlier email, this is to confirm that the children will be served lunch prasadam from the temple from next week. Should your child bring a packed lunch from home please ensure there are no nuts or items containing nut products as we have a child in school with a severe nut allergy.

Your child should also bring a mid morning snack and we recommend they bring fruit or a similar healthy snack. Please also make sure your child brings a water bottle.

Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada,

Gunacuda dasi

Dear parent,

I hope you and your family are well and that we might see you at some of our three events this week in gurukula: gardening afternoon (today), Radhastami programme and the 6 hour kirtan on 30th.

I had emailed the attendance policy to you all a few weeks ago and explained that for this year we would no longer have the procedure where parents can apply at least month in advance for 10 extra days leave to go on pilgrimage.

The gurukula had not received any applications for leave for this new academic year before we closed in the summer so ,following our policy and government guidelines, any absence for holiday from the 2nd September will be marked an unauthorised absence.

Every school is required, as part of safeguarding, to have a Children Missing Education procedure. As with all schools in England, this states that if a child misses 10 days at school without an explanation or notification to the school they will be considered missing and it is a legal duty for the school to inform the Local Authority.

We expect all families to send their children back to gurukula on 2nd September, however if you know you will not be here then please send an email to either myself or Tulsi Seva mataji (via the admin email ) before 28th August explaining why your child will be absent and when you expect them to return.

This is an important part of  our safeguarding procedure and does get checked.

We are aiming to have overall attendance of 97% this year and request everyone’s cooperation to ensure this happens especially as children have been out of school for a prolonged period during the lockdown.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Yours in  the service of Srila Prabhupada,

Gunacuda Dasi

Dear parents

Hare Krishna. Please find attached the updated Attendance Policy which contains important information regarding the Gurukula’s policy and procedures for monitoring absence and attendance.

With Ofsted due to visit this academic year we would like to show improvement in our attendance.  The children have also had a considerable amount of time out of school due to the Covid-19 closures. Therefore, for this academic year the school will not be offering the previous provision of parents being able to apply for 10 days extra holiday for pilgrimage. The governing body will look at this again next year.

We hope to achieve the national target of 97% attendance .

We reopen for all children on Wednesday 2nd September at 8.30 am ( for devotional soft start in classrooms) and lessons will commence at 8.50.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada,

Gunacuda dasi

Dear parents,

Hare Krishna

As part of our preparation for welcoming all children back to the Gurukula in September the teachers and I are discussing how we will address the emotional and mental health needs of the children after lockdown.

Your child may have been at home for 6 months by this point and be quite anxious about being away from you. We understand that the anxious child is not a learning child and as part of the recovery curriculum that will be in place I would ask you to help your child to make a ‘Happiness Box’ to bring with them on September 2nd.

Please see the details below:

https://barrycarpentereducation.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/rationale-for-the-happiness-box.pdf

You may find some of the books below useful. Although they do not have words, the rationale behind this is that the part of the brain that deals with experiencing emotions (amygdala) works less effectively once another area of the brain has to also be engaged to read words. These books have no words and can be used with your child to allow them to construct their own story based on their experience at this time.

https://booksbeyondwords.co.uk/coping-with-coronavirus

If you have any questions or things you would like us to know about the experiences your child has had during lockdown please do not hesitate to contact me or your child’s teacher via email.

Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada

Gunacuda Dasi