TIMELINE
Origins:
- Sri Damdama Sahib P.6, situated in Rakba, Punjab (India), creates the first version of 'P6 Academy' known as 'Patishahi Chevi Vidhyala’ in the early 2000’s.
Arriving in the UK - P6Gatka:
- P6 Gatka Akhara, teaching Sikh martial arts, begins its first lesson in the UK at Sri Guru Nanak Gurdwara, Sedgley Street, Wolverhampton (UK) in November 2015.
- The lessons grew from 1 student to an average of 50 per week.
Expanding from P6 Gatka:
- To make an impact beyond the local area, the first initiative was to do a sponsored 6-hour Gatka event, for Khalsa Seva and BDUK - the students raised over £1500.
- Following the first year’s success, we ran the event again the following year and the students raised £15,000 for Khalsa Aid, Midlands Langar Seva and BDUK.
P6 Academy:
- In summer of 2019, we hosted a summer Gurmat camp for 2 weeks. This turned out to be an absolute success with over 250 students regularly attending.
- After the 2-week summer camp, P6 Gatka Akhara transitioned into P6 Academy increasing the number of weekly classes to 4: Santhia, Self Defence, Kirtan & Gatka.
COVID-19 LOCKDOWN:
- With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, classes had to be stopped. Therefore, we decided to create an online platform where students around the country could have access to Gurmat Vidya at home.
- We decided to have a fundraiser, requesting £30,000, to fund the launch of this project.
Fundraiser:
- At a time of much financial insecurity, after a well driven campaign and the help of the community, we reached our £30,000 target.
- The P6 Academy Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) was born.
VLE Testing:
- The platform was developed and tested to ensure capabilities. The appropriate teams were put in place to develop curriculums and translate these into resources tailored for remote learning.
- In September 2021, Santhia & KS1/4 Tuition will launch for 30 students. The newly developed platform is to be extensively assessed with feedback given from students of their experience. This feedback will be used to enhance the platform.
Going forwards:
- Once the VLE has been tested extensively, Santhia & KS1/4 tuition is to be launched nationwide in the UK before becoming global courses available to any country.
- Other learning areas such as Fitness, Raag Vidya & Wellbeing are to be developed and optimised for the platform. The next courses to be developed include Tanti Saaj (Stringed Instruments), Punjabi/English Communication of Language (PCOL/ECOL) & Fitness.