Members of Staff of the Holy Family Primary School located in downtown Kingston are set to benefit from a capacity-building initiative being implemented, by the Joan Duncan Foundation, at the school.

Dubbed, Conversations for Greatness, the initiative is intended to engage teachers and staff at the school, in a number of exchanges with motivational speakers, as well as business and civic leaders, with the hope that this interface will equip them with leadership skills, which will drive them to improve the school.

Principal at the school, Christopher Wright, explained the initiative to The Gleaner.

"Conversations for Greatness is a joint initiative with the Ministry of Education and the Joan Duncan Foundation. There are some schools that were classified as underperforming ...; our schools was one of those schools and so the ministry has something they call operation turn around ... so our school was privileged to be selected as one of the first schools to be part of the initiative and one of the objectives is to strengthen our understanding that we are powerful beings," he said.

Wright pointed out that the conversations will create a paradigm shift in his staff so that they are motivated to continue improving the school's performance. Wright also outlined some of the practical aspects of the programme.

"We had a one-day seminar at the Mona Visitors Lodge, and staff members discussed some of the things that were keeping them back from achieving ..., so the presenters gave them the necessary tools to overcome those challenges," he added.

He also highlighted that his teachers have visited another school to share the lessons learnt from the seminar.

Wright hopes that the building of the leadership capabilities of his teachers will create greater learning outcomes and impact the students at the school.

"Once we start to model this behaviour, this greatness, the children will see it and once we show love to each other, the children will see it and model it among themselves and in the community, the society and it will ultimately create a better world," he said.

- AndrÈ Poyser