St. Ann���s Bay Primary seeks to ���enrich��� its students with literacy and numeracy

Digicel Foundation hands over completed Enrichment Room to improve literacy   Kingston, Jamaica – 05 October 2009: St. Ann’s Bay Primary is excited to begin working on its literacy and numeracy rates by employing the technology and tools found in its new Enrichment Room, courtesy of Digicel Foundation. Under a partnership with the Ministry of Education, dubbed the “Enrichment Centre Initiative”, St. Ann’s Bay Primary is one of twelve primary schools that have received an Enrichment Room.   “The Digicel Foundation remains committed to educating our children across the island, and under this partnership with the Ministry of Education, we remain committed to our task at hand to eliminate illiteracy, and drastically improve our numeracy skills, in the shortest time possible. With that said, the Digicel Foundation is happy to hand over, yet another completed Enrichment Room to the St. Ann’s Bay Primary School. We are confident that the Room has not only been appropriately equipped with the necessary hardware and software, but that the teachers that will work in the Room have also been successfully trained to produce results”, commented Major General Robert Neish, Executive Director of the Digicel Foundation.   St. Ann’s Bay Primary School is located in the capital town of St. Ann’s Bay and facilitates the learning of 1546 students. Operating on a shift-basis, the students reside in the neighbouring communities where they experience a lifestyle dictated by low-socio economic conditions.    “MICO Care Center conducted educational tests on referred students that revealed that at least 10% of our current population has one or more learning disabilities,” explained Principal Amy James when asked of the school’s need for an Enrichment Room.  “We have limited spaces available at the Special Education Unit and so we have been forced to accommodate and provide lessons for these students, within our curriculum”, she further stated.   “After receiving our results of 70% mastery in literacy and 40% in numeracy in 2008, numbers quite below our stated goal in our School Improvement Plan, we sought out assistance from the Digicel Foundation to explore the possibility of having an Enrichment Room installed here, and we were delighted when we were approved,” expressed Principal James.   Mr. Roger Henry and Ms. Cleodean Francis are the two teachers who have been trained to work with the under-achievers and over-achievers within the school populace. They participated in an extensive three-month training program, involving representatives of the three main streams of the Ministry of Education, i.e. Literacy, Numeracy and Special Education as well as the Special Educator of Jessie Ripoll Primary School, Sandra Maxwell-Williams. This training has equipped them with strategies on how to identify and treat each child’s area of weakness and also how to use the various literacy and numeracy software and hardware.   “The Enrichment Centre Initiative is tailored to meet both the needs of under-achievers, reading below their grade levels, and over-achievers, who require more educational challenges that are not presented in the normal classroom context,” commented Enrichment Initiative Coordinator, Dr. Michele Meredith-Dobbs from the Education Transformation Project in the Ministry of Education. The rooms are equipped with Information Communication Technologies such as laptops, computers, literacy and numeracy software such as Hooked on Phonics, Early Success, and Master Reader, Hooked on Math, Math Manipulative Audio-Visual Headsets, TV Sets, DVD Players, among others.   Principal James remains adamant that, “Despite the various challenges that the school faces on a daily basis, the commitment, resilience and dedication of the forty-five teachers on staff have helped to boost morale and have ensured that we are still a formidable force to be reckoned with, in the education sector.”