Leicester’s first free Sikh school – Falcons Primary has now been given the go-ahead to open after the funding was pulled days before it was originally due to open three weeks. The parents were hugely dejected when news that the school was not going to open. As many as 70 children were due to attend the new school.
The parents and children are rejoicing and elated to have the school back and running, says parent, Bhupinder Singh whose daughter was to study in Falcons Primary school, “It’s been fantastic news for us since we found out, we have not stopped smiling”.
“We can now push forward a major milestone of our life; we were in a limbo when we found out the news a few weeks ago. We were contacting schools around to see for places for our children but now this issue is set to bed. We can look forward in life and give our child the best education that’s on offer. We feel there is a life at the end of the tunnel and it’s a huge relief for all of us. We still do not understand why or how this actually happened”.
Another parent, Manpreet Kaur said, “I am extremely happy. It was very stressful when we’d see our son cry every morning to want to go to school. He’d get his uniform on and I’d have to take it off and he would not stop crying. But he is good now after the news of his school beginning soon”.
There is a new ray of hope for the faculty members at Falcons Primary school. Tajinder Kaur Jagdev, the founder of Akaal Education Trust said, “I was delighted with the news. I could not have been happier. Parents put a lot of trust in us. And when we thought it was not going to go ahead it was devastating. We had to stay strong to support the parents as their pain was greater than ours.’
The spokesperson of Department of Education says, “We continue to support the idea of a Sikh ethos school in Leicester and have been working closely with the Trust of Falcons Primary to see if we can open the school soon. The Trust must meet a number of strict conditions before this can happen – for example on staffing, governance and pupil numbers – but good progress has already been made”.
“We will continue to support and work with them to try and open the school soon and would like to pay tribute to members of the local community who have put in a lot of time and effort over recent days to secure the future of the Sikh ethos school that we all want to see”.
