Constitution Hill Primary and Infant School in St. Andrew has transitioned from a multigrade to a single-grade institution.
A multigrade institution is one where a single teacher instructs students from different age groups, grades and abilities in the same classroom.
According to the Ministry of Education, Skills Youth and Information, there are 238 multigrade schools in operation.
Principal, Melicia Mathison, told JIS News that the multigrade model was used due to the school’s small population.
In 2010, the school had 45 students, and that number grew to 116 at the end of the former principal’s tenure in 2017.
With only four teachers, there were always two multigrade classes – one in lower school and another in the upper school.
Ms. Mathison explained that there was a merger between grades one and two or grades two and three as well as grades four and five or grades five and six.
“So, with the growth, we lobbied, wrote to the Ministry of Education indicating that our numbers are increasing, and as a result, when the class sizes are too large, it makes it hard to give individual attention to the students. Currently, we have 155 students, and that caused us to move from being multigrade to single grade,” she explained.
An excited Ms. Mathison told JIS News that the transition has been great, sharing that since September 2024, each grade has had its own teacher.
She underscored that even though a single-grade environment is ideal for students and teachers, a multigrade school has its benefits.
“You have students that are one grade level behind, so even when the other grade is learning, whatever learning deficits they have, that can be bridged. However, on the side of the teacher, it means that you have to be teaching two classes and doing two lesson plans,” she said.
Ms. Mathison explained that there are some topics that can be merged in mathematics and language arts, using differentiated instructions.
However, in upper school – grades four to six – there is a designated curriculum for each grade that must be taught separately.
Reflecting on the transition, she said: “It really has been a journey,” noting that space was a major constraint.
“I had a conversation with the staff and I’m like, we have to make this happen. We can’t build a room right now, and we are at that point, and they said, ‘Miss, we’re going single grade. We’re going single grade, even if it means to transform a room’. So, we transformed the staff room. The staff room now houses the grade-five students,” she added.