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Minister of Education, Skills, Youth and Information, Senator Dr. the Hon. Dana Morris Dixon, has praised the Principal and staff of Gregory Park Primary School in Portmore, St. Catherine, which she hailed as a model for educational transformation and excellence.

Senator Morris Dixon lauded the school for its remarkable turnaround, innovative teaching methodologies, particularly in literacy and numeracy, and its exceptional leadership.

Her comments came during a visit to the institution on Thursday (May 8), as part of a tour of four schools in the Ministry’s Region Six, which also included Cedar Grove Academy, Naggo Head Infant School, and Naggo Head Primary School.

She was accompanied by State Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and Member of Parliament (MP) for St Catherine East Central, Hon. Alando Terrelonge.

Senator Morris Dixon said based on Gregory Park Primary’s achievements, “This school is a special one.

“If you look at the data on this school, you would see that some of the outcomes weren’t what we wanted. But coming here and listening to the Principal and seeing the work of the teachers and interacting with the students, it is clear that we have really great leadership here and that we have excellent teachers at this school,” she added.

Senator Morris Dixon noted that, given not all students have received the ideal preparation for primary school, the institution is stepping in and providing the necessary interventions to support their development.

“When I saw the reading levels of so many of the children, I said, ‘yes, this is the right thing to do’. You understand, so much, how important reading is and you’ve already incorporated it,” she said, championing the school’s intervention programme, which was created by its Principal, Richard Williams.

Mr. Williams highlighted the institution’s proactive approach to foundational learning, noting that Gregory Park Primary has been prioritising reading and phonics instruction for grades one to three since 2018, well ahead of broader discussions in the sector.

However, greater intervention for numeracy and literacy at the school began years earlier when he was appointed Principal.

“When I started at Gregory Park in 2014, in that first term, I asked the teachers to do a reading diagnostic test for the entire school. But when we collated the data for grades one to three – we had 285 students between grades one and three – 187 students were reading below grade-one level,” Mr. Williams said.

He revealed that, based on these findings, he drafted a proposal for an enrichment centre, which was established in 2015. Consequently, the school’s literacy rate rose to 74 per cent the following year.

Mr. Williams added that he aims to raise this figure to more than 80 per cent in the coming years.

Similar interventions proved successful in numeracy.

“That year, 2014, 110 students did the numeracy exam, and only 28 students mastered. That was like 25 per cent,” Mr. Williams said.

He noted that the school saw significant improvement after introducing extra classes, securing support from a maths specialist, and his personally engaging in maths instruction.

“When the exam results came the following year, we moved from 25 per cent mastery to 45 per cent mastery, and in statistics, we had 100 per cent mastery,” Mr. Williams proudly shared.

He commended his teachers for their dedication, affirming that the school is on track to meet its targets for the current academic year, with encouraging results anticipated from recent Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examinations.

Senator Morris Dixon, who was impressed by the school’s achievements and its strategic intervention plans, described Gregory Park Primary School as a “great example for Jamaica of how we are going to transform our schools across this country”, underscoring its potential as a blueprint for national educational improvement.