Thu | Mar 28, 2024

Oracabessa Primary School gets literacy boost

Published:Wednesday | November 7, 2018 | 12:00 AMCarl Gilchrist/Gleaner Writer
These two students show off the T-shirts they decorated.
These students seem to be enjoying themselves in art class.
1
2

A team from the California, USA-based charitable organisation Great Shape Inc is back in Jamaica, with the help of Sandals Foundation, this time assisting the Oracabessa Primary School in St Mary through a language arts literacy project.

Co-director of Great Shape Gretchen Lee said two language arts teams are at the school for a two-week period, one for grades one to three and the other for grades four to six. The team, which is being hosted by Sandals Foundation, is also helping in other areas, including art, music, sports and computer.

"The goal is to bring children up to grade level, who have kind of fallen between the cracks for whatever reason, but most of these children can learn to read and learn to do the job if they get that little bit of individual instruction. So that's one of the things we're patterning in the language arts programme," Lee explained to The Gleaner.

 

HAPPY STUDENTS

 

A visit to the school revealed that the students were happy to be involved in the language arts programme, especially when it came to expressing themselves through art, on T-shirts and on paper.

Principal Gregory Davis expressed delight at the visit of the Great Shape team and thanked them for their support.

"The Great Shape team has been making a very good impact on the school this week, where they have been making steady inroads where numeracy and literacy is concerned," Davis revealed.

"The students are very excited about the computer classes, as well as the art classes and physical education classes that they've had so far.

"The team that came here this year, they are very professional, their pullout classes are very meaning-ful. We found that this week has been one of the quietest weeks because of the impact the group has been making."

The Great Shape team also donated several computers and a projector to the school, which, Davis said, would go a far way in helping to enhance learning at the institution.