FAQ

They will probably follow Mr. T (Director)  Max (TDSB Teacher), or Daphne (YRDSB Teacher) all summer by taking a few of the advanced classes: Writer’s Workshop, Vocabulary, Public Speaking, or Leadership. Grade 6-9 are their specialties. The older campers will never ask their parents, “why did you put me in camp?

Juku has been providing a Math/English Combo class for the last twenty years.  Camp students will get work similar to the work tutoring students receive throughout the year. Students will always be challenged with work based on their abilities. Most of the work will be next year’s curriculum.

Before students are challenged with Juku-work, teachers will spend time introducing a new list of spelling and vocabulary words.   All English work has a component of vocabulary/spelling building exercises, grammar, reading, and creative or academic writing. The math work will primarily focus on computational drills, along with word problems and curriculum based exercises.

Although the Edufun class has it’s own daily schedule, the students will take their breaks and lunch at the same time as the rest of the class.  They will participate with the greater camp for Wednesday and Friday afternoon fun activities (Mini-Olympics, movies, popcorn/juice box, awards/raffles, and toy box visits).  The movies will be age appropriate.

In previous years, we have created a grade 1/2 class when the Edufun is full.  Grade 1’s will be given an option. 

All children must be at least 4 years old.

Meal plans are optional. For those who want Juku to supply meals, we provide daily meals.   Children will get their meals from the main room and then join their friends for lunch. The meals will include: (1) a main entrée, such as, Pizza, Hotdogs, Butter Chicken, Chinese food, MacDonalds, sandwiches.; (2) usually a side item: chips, rice, buns, carrots; (3) drink box/water; and (4) a dessert snack.

Sorry, but we cannot accommodate a strictly vegetarian diet. We will always have a “no pork” option.  Although the camp is peanut-free, we suggest that those with a peanut/seafood allergy do not take the meal plan.  Some food sources, such as ethnic food, may not follow the no peanut rules.

The meal plan does not include any snacks during breaks. Parents can provide snacks for their child for the breaks. But this is optional, many students are having too much fun to snack.

Since providing meals requires pre-planning, the pay-as-you-go rate is $8. 

Since field trips include lunch, those on the meal plan pay $6 less for the field trip.

Absolutely not.  You can work Camp Juku into your child’s busy summer agenda by choosing as many or few weeks as you like.  You might consider that the rates might be lower if you register for more than two weeks at a time.  Adding weeks later will be treated as single weeks.  Also, students who attend the complete Summer are guaranteed an “Iron-Person” trophy at the trophy ceremony.

During the camp, all the staff is 100% focused on the camp. There are no daily or weekly scheduling/payments during the camp hours (8am-6pm).

You should add extended hours and meal plans to the original registration form.

You can always add or subtract them before camp starts.

After camp starts, the refund schedule applies to any cancellations.

New students registering during the camp can add them at the standard fee.

For late additions after camp starts, the rates are:

Meal plans $8/day.  Morning hours $4/day, Afternoon hours $7/day.

The Juku-points are used in our end of day raffle draw for prizes and candies. The daily tickets are added to the weekly group.  Every Friday the weekly draws are for larger prizes and to determine who gets to visit the “toy box” first. Every student will get to take an item out of the toy box. The box is constantly filled with different fun and educational items.

Welcome Back: Special Deal for Returning Students who Register Early.

Register for 3 or more weeks before March 31^st and receive a free week of meals or extended hours (am/pm) for all the siblings.

For this special discount, enter “2023meals” or “2023hours” in the registration form.

This is for returning students only. This will count as one of your three allowed referral discounts.

Early registration will help us plan our resources, space requirements, and the viability of locations.

The top award is the Spirit Award. This award goes to the students who: works hard; plays fair; displays great attitude; and is basically the prototype for the ideal summer student at Juku.  Most of the winners eventually become volunteers at Camp Juku.

Here’s the tip to winning an award. Always show great attitude and be at Juku long enough to get noticed.

The extended hours are set by the school board and cannot be changed by Juku. The earliest drop-off time is 8:00 am and the latest pickup time is 5:45pm.  Some schools allow for earlier entry or later pickup times. Please call us if this is of importance.  Note: we will supervise the children until 6pm, even if we have to go to the front entrance.

Students are not allowed on school property before or after these times. Students will have free play time during the extended hours (tv, game systems, cards, board games, lego…).

The grace period, before 9am and after 4pm, is 10 minutes.   There is an extended hour fee for anyone coming in 10 minutes before the class starting time ($3) or staying 10 minutes past the class closing time ($5).   There is a weekly discount of 50% if you can consistently pickup your child within 30 minutes after class (you must be able to be within 4:30pm every day).

Please do not come after 6:00 pm because many of the teachers have other commitments, like evening classes to teach or attend.  The school will be shutdown at 6pm. (lights out).
The fee for pickup after the expected pickup time (6:00 pm) will be $1 per minute.  Teachers will wait outside.

Although we base our staffing and material inventory on the number of expected students, we do recognize that things come up and you should not have to be penalized for prepaying well in advance Since refunds are an administrative burden, it is essential that we receive an email confirmation before any days are missed; otherwise, a refund will not be possible. No exceptions!

All refunds and referral payments are issued before Oct 15.

For the current refund policy, please visit the refund section of the website.

Spread the word!  A large part of the expense of operating a summer camp is advertising expense.  We would rather reward our loyal campers who tell their friends about our great camp.

Juku offers $20 for the referring family.

Of course, like the Refund Policy, there are stringent conditions. The most important one is that all referrers and referred families must take at least 3 weeks.

For the current referral policy, please visit the registration section of this website.

Here are some some of the common referral situations:

Assumption:  All parents have filled out the online Referral Form and have registered before April 15.

There is a Referral Discount (RD) limit of 3.

1.  Owen is a returning parent and refers Ann who is a new parent.  They both receive one regular RD.  [RD type 1]

2. Sally is a returning parent and refers four new parents.  Each new parent gets a regular RD and Sally gets three RD’s [1, max 3]

3.  Alfred is a returning parent and refers Jose who is a new parent, but Jose has already registered.  No RD [1}

4.  Julie is a new parent who refers Jack who is a new parent.  There is no RD unless there is a returning parent.  [1]

5.  Rob is a new parent and has three other new families interested in registering.
-After contacting the Director a group family group was set up and all of them will get one RD. [2]

6.  June is a returning parent and registers before April 1.  She will get a special RD. She doesn’t need to refer anyone.  (3)

7.  Joe is a returning parent and registers Winnie who is a new parent before April 1.  Joe will get a special RD and Winnie will get one regular RD. (3)

8.  Asheesh is a returning parent and registers four new parent before April 1.
-Asheesh will get a special RD and 2 regular RD’s and the other parents will get one regular RD. (3)

9.  Bob is a returning parent and registers after April 1 and refers Harold, a new parent.  They will both get a regular RD.  (3)

10 Pat refers parents after April 15.   No RD’s.

More complex scenarios:

1. Alice is a returning parent with two children and refers Tom who has one child.
Tom and Amy get one regular RD.
If before April 1, Alice will get 1 special RD and one regular RD.

2. Alice is a returning parent and has three children and she refers families, Tom, Amy, Bob, and Joe.
Tom, Amy, Bob, and Joe get one regular RD.
If before April 1, Alice will get 1 special RD and two regular RD’s because the maximum is 3 RD’s.
If she wants the meal plan: she can get a week for the three children, and a second week for 2 of the children.
It will cost and extra $21 for the third meal plan ($30 x 70%).
After April 1, Alice will get 3 regular RD’s.

Note: referrals will not show up on the invoice.  They will be recorded and printed out weekly for the camp staff.

Still confused?  Call/Text the Director. 416-737-7285

The registration/material fee is used to cover the cost of a binder and some of the snacks and prizes over the summer  (popcorn, juice box/water, candies/freezees/end of day/week raffle prizes, trophies/awards, and Friday’s toy box prizes). 

It is a non-refundable fee for anyone who withdrawals or changes their registration after the camp starts.

If we are notified before June 1, we will adjust the total fees based on the ratecard.  After June 1, only the future fees will be adjusted based on the ratecard.  For example:  If you registered for one week and paid $135, but later want to add 2 more weeks, the last two weeks will be based on $145 (3 week rate).

All fees are based on our current ratecard.   Once you send in your registration form, will we process it and sent you back a confirmation of the fees.  We try to keep the fees fair and affordable for all the families that register, so early bird dates and fees are non-negotiable.  We have hundreds of parents to register and cannot have “special” non-advertised deals.   That would add to our administrative burden and result in higher fees for all.

If you have any special scheduling requirements, contact us for proper adjustments.

Almost all the students attend on a “full week” basis.  The teachers have based the lesson plan and games/contests/teams on the assumption that the class attendance is the same for each week.   For example, if a teacher has an ongoing story being developed or has grouped leadership teams for mentoring, then it would be a problem if someone did not appear the next day.  Having said this, it is still possible to pick and choose your days.  But, it is more costly.

In fact, if you were taking 4 days a week, it is better to take the whole week and just miss a day (and apply for a refund) then to do a partial week at $37.5 per day.

Also, if you are randomly choosing days, keep in mind that Friday afternoon is when the movie, mini-Olympics, raffles, and toy box visit occurs.

The field trip includes lunch.   Every year it is pretty much all-you-can-eat, we always have lots of leftovers.  Each year it varies a bit, but the standard fare is:  hamburgers (chicken and beef), sausages, pizza, chips, juice, water, salad, and vegetarian meals.

If you are already on the meal plan, the field trip will have been discounted $6 when registering.  You will not have to pay twice for lunch.

Since lots of planning goes into the special picnic/party day and head counts are required for the bus and park, we do not allow drop-ins.
If you plan to skip the field trip there is no classes being offered as an alternative.  You will have to apply for a partial refund for the “class” fees.
There is no refund for the field trip fees.  See Refund Policy.

Barbecue lunch follows with hot dogs, hamburgers, sausages, pizza, chips, juice water, and some vegetarian meals.  Last year it was pretty much all-you-can-eat as we had a lot of leftovers.  After everyone was stuffed, we cranked up the music and let the students have some free time.  We took plenty of pictures.  Students did sports, danced, talked, blew bubbles, demonstrated tai chi, taekwondo, and dance moves. 

After a group picture, it was sadly time to go…a great time was had by all!

Very safe, except for maybe a “paper cut”. Our camp still has a heavy focus on academics. There is no tolerance for “horseplay” or anything dangerous. The teachers, volunteers, and markers are all over the place. They keep each child very engaged in activities so there won’t be any time for mischief. Often during play time, they are sitting right beside the students.

Not only are the teachers well versed in safety issues, but many of the senior students who have been with us for 4-7 years are great at notifying teachers of bad behaviour. The importance of the camp rules are discussed every Monday and reviewed throughout the week. Most schools have security cameras that can be reviewed for anything.

Although discipline is seldom required, we do have our “tricks” to keep students enthusiastic about listening to the teachers and focused during “work’ time”. Students are mainly motivated to work as hard as possible in order to receive JUKU POINTS, but if they break any of our camp rules, they can: 1) be required to complete some work during break time; 2) miss a complete break 3) after a few warnings, students may be required to fill out a “Frontier Justice Page”. The FJP is where a student has to write 30-50 lines, such as, “I will not bother the class during work time.”, “I will not run in the hallways”. Parents will be notified of more serious incidents. (continuous bad behaviour, doing anything dangerous, disobeying teachers…).

This is our strength.  We have known many of the teachers for a long time.  They have either been through the Juku tutoring system or Camp Juku, or they are personal friends with a teaching/camp background.

The main supervisors are the camp director, Paul Tazumi (BA, MBA, Director of Juku Learning Centres and One Red Apple Learning Organization), and Max Tazumi (BA, B.Ed., TDSB), Daphne Ku (B.Ed. M.Ed, YRDSB), and Jennifer Chan (B.A., future B.Ed). The other teachers are either Ontario certified teachers (OCT), university students in the process of being certified, or university students with camp supervision experience.

Volunteer Assistants are university or high school students who have either been through many years at Juku Learning Centres or Camp Juku.

We only hire individuals who follow Juku’s motto of “professional, yet fun”.  

Volunteering at Camp Juku is a tremendous character builder.  Students will learn leadership, patience, organizational, public speaking skills and overall communication skills.  We are really proud of the work performed and the progress of our high school volunteers.  Many of our volunteer/teacher alumni have gone on to do great things.

Each year, we have a few spaces for volunteers to help with the marking and coordination of activities.  We always have more applicants than positions.  Most of the positions are filled from returning volunteers or previous “Spirit Award” winners.   They have demonstrated that they have: maturity; character; high academic standards; familiarity with the Juku camp rules and regulations; and a disposition of being “friendly and patient” with children.   Previous Camp Juku students and experienced volunteers from other camps will be considered, especially if they possess some teachable skills (rubik’s cube, dance, art…) and can help the whole summer.

If you are interested in volunteering, please visit the “Volunteer” section of the website.

It could be the happy children willing to learn new things or the blend of academics with fun or the ever-changing variety of activities, games, and contests or the action-packed field trip days, but the whole camp is really made awesome because of the teachers.

Teachers and volunteers have been carefully selected.  Almost the complete staff, has a personal tie to Camp Juku or the Juku Learning Centre.   In preparation for the camp, we have teacher orientation days where we cover all the procedures, games, and new activities.  During the camp we have teacher meetings, to discuss how we can add to the “fun factor” of the camp.  And at the end of camp, the teachers get together to reflect on this year’s camp and build ideas and enthusiasm for next year’s camp.  We even have meeting during Christmas holidays and March Break.

We want our teachers to know that they are very integral to the success of making each summer awesome for each child.