... Making steady progress in numeracy
GLENDEVON PRIMARY and Junior High in Montego Bay, St James, has been making steady progress in numeracy, with 62 per cent of the grade four cohort achieving mastery in 2016.
The average attainment level for Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) mathematics is 50 per cent in 2017, as it was last year, with students scoring as high as 91 per cent. Rewind to 2013. The National Education Inspectorate (NEI) reported then that mastery of numeracy for the three preceding years was “below national and regional averages”. GSAT mathematics averages also “fluctuated marginally over the period and remained below the national average”.
There is clearly more work to be done in improving student performance in numeracy and mathematics.
“We go the extra mile to ensure that students are given quality time, being here from as early as 7 a.m., so they get early work done,” explained Richard Chevers, coordinator for grade six and mathematics.
“I am here after school and every Saturday. All of that is free, because our students are from poor socio-economic backgrounds, so we do what is necessary to achieve positive results,” he added.
As the mathematics coordinator, he exchanges classes with other teachers while they teach another subject. This has become more structured since the new school year with the piloting of specialist teachers in mathematics.
Chevers is the mathematics teacher for grades six and four. It is hoped that this will bring about even greater improvement in mathematics.
For the third consecutive year, students have made it to the finals of the Maths Olympiad competition hosted by the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. This year, seven students made it to the finals and three will be awarded certificate of merit.
CHANGING FOR THE BETTER
Chevers, echoing other teachers, underscores the importance that nutrition plays in the students’ ability to learn: “We ensure that needy students are fed, even if it means giving up my lunch; I do that at times”.
In the past, many of the students admitted to grade one were poor in their readiness level, because parents were unable to send their children to privately run basic schools to receive early stimulation. So, the children entered primary school for the first time at age six.
That situation changed for the better with the introduction of an infant department, which has now become a feeder for the school’s primary department. Principal Susan Simms boasts that it is the first government-run early childhood institution on the island that was licensed by the Early Childhood Commission effective July 2016.
“Now most of the children who enter at grade one are proficient as assessed by the Grade One Inventory diagnostic test. Those who are weak in reading are exposed to Jolly Phonics lessons,” she noted.