About the School

Gujaratis in general and Kutchis in particular have for generations been sea faring people. By the turn of the 20th century many of them had travelled to East African countries in search of new areas of employment and business opportunities. They always desired to maintain, promote and propagate their own culture, tradition and religion. They firmly believe that desire can be best achieved through their mother tongue - Gujarati. The then British governments in these East African countries incorporated the Gujarati language as one of the curriculum subjects up to higher school levels. 

In the early 1960's due to social, economical and political changes in these East African countries many Gujaratis emigrated from East Africa to the U.K. In the early years due to smaller number of Gujaratis the schools in the U.K did not cater for the Gujarati language, however the Gujaratis wanted to retain their culture and language. As their numbers grew larger, various people with similar ethnical, social, cultural and religious upbringings got together into groups and bought places where they could meet, exchange views, organise festivals and propagate religious preaching.

In 1975 people originating from Kutch, then living mainly in North-West London bought and renovated a large disused church on Willesden Lane, NW2 for use as place of worship. It was converted and officially opened as a temple in late 1975. On one side it also had a small hall which was used for social and wedding functions. The temple committee being aware that mother-tongue Gujarati is an essential tool in fostering religion and culture decided to organise Gujarati classes t weekends in the social hall. Some young volunteers offered to teach Gujarati free of charge. The temple undertook to bear the full cost of textbooks, pens, writing books and so on. Thus Shree Swaminarayan Temple, Willesden Gujarati School was operational by the end of 1977. A few years later an adjoining property was bought to cater for ever growing number of students.

With the passage of time as the number of congregates at the temple and students in the school grew larger it was decided in 1986 to demolish the existing temple and the adjoining building and build a new three storey temple complex combining traditional Hindu Temple architecture with British design. During the construction period of the new temple the school activity continued uninterrupted elsewhere, as did the religious activity. The temple was completed and officially opened by His Holiness Acharya Maharaj Shree Tejendraprasadji Pande on Friday 29th July 1988 in the presence of learned Saints and devotees from Bhuj, Ahmedabad and other parts of the world.

The new temple complex has a prayer hall on the ground floor, library and residence for priests on the mezzanine floor and social and wedding hall on the first floor with car parking in the basement. The first floor hall has been so designed as to facilitate a purpose built Gujarati school at weekends. The school conducts Gujarati classes for children aged eight years onwards teaching them from fundamental Gujarati alphabets all through to GCSE levels. The first batch of students from this school appeared for GCSE (formerly GCE) exams in 1983 through their formal schools and achieved very good results. By 1990 some schools in the borough of Brent started requesting the teachers of this school to act as their examiners for Gujarati oral exams. This service was also provided by the school free of any charge.

The school started in early 1977 with some experienced teachers, some graduates and some educational enthusiasts. With the passage of time the school attracted more highly educated volunteers. The school also welcomes bright ex-student volunteers who have completed their GCSE in Gujarati with good grades to come and teach Gujarati at the school. The school trains these youngsters and other volunteers. By so doing the youngsters improve their own knowledge of Gujarati as well as impart their knowledge to their younger peers. This helps in reducing the generation gap between the teachers and the students. Senior staff ensures that this arrangement is properly supervised so as to maintain and improve the educational and behavioural standards.

Initially the school used to import Gujarati textbooks from Gujarat-India or occasionally buy them from local specialist bookshops. However, the younger generation of teachers and modern students found these textbooks unsuitable as the contents therein were not relevant to their environment. Therefore it was decided to prepare the textbooks locally such that the teaching material is more relevant and comprehendable to the modern young students of Gujarati in the Western environment. The process of preparing these textbooks began in late 1995. Suggestions as regard to the contents and arrangements of materials in the textbooks began to pour in from younger as well as more experienced teachers. These were collected, refined, put in book forms, tested, further refined and modified to suit, and after four years of strenuous efforts a set of text books were prepared which are currently in use. We hope to refine these text books further to eliminate all types of typographical and other errors and release them as text books in the new term beginning with September 2000.

The school presently has about 500 students spread over two days at the weekend learning Gujarati and has about 60 volunteer teachers. All educational material is provided free of charge to the students. Teachers are encouraged to improve teaching standards and are provided with most up to date facilities such as Word processor, Computer, Audio Visual Aids etc. Over the past years the average pass rate has been over 90%. In the last two years the pass rate has been 100%. We aim to improve this further by getting 100% passes with even better grades.