Inside Education is a monthly column established by the Ministry and Department of Education. The column showcases various aspects of the education system which often go unnoticed. This month our focus is on the Morris Vanterpool Primary School. Located in the Copse, East End, the Morris Vanterpool Primary School provides its students a sound education in a friendly and nurturing environment. With its small student population, and caring staff, it is easy for everyone to feel like family.
Teacher Avecia Webster has been a member of the Morris Vanterpool Primary School family for the past fifteen years and the Grade Five teacher for ten of those years. Her desire to be the best teacher she can be, resulted in equipping herself by becoming a trained teacher and attaining a Bachelor’s Degree in Education Administration from the University of the West Indies. While quiet and unassuming in demeanour, Teacher Avecia’s commitment to her students makes her an asset to her school. It is amazing to watch her manage to get a group of usually rowdy students to work quietly and stay focused without ever raising her voice. She demonstrates unwavering patience in dealing with her students’ various needs and in return her students love and respect her. Principal of the Morris Vanterpool Primary School, Mr Michael Skellekie, is pleased with Teacher Avecia’s work not only in the classroom but out of the classroom.
For the past four years, Teacher Avecia has been using the schoolyard as her outdoor classroom. As a way of demonstrating how plants grow, which is a requirement of the Science Curriculum, Teacher Avecia has engaged her Grade Five students in taking care of the school’s vegetable garden. The students have been involved in weeding the garden, planting, watering the plants and harvesting the produce. Labels have also been created to mark where each type of vegetable is planted in various sections of the garden. This active approach to learning has paid off as the students are well aware of the factors that affect the growth of plants and the various stages of growth. When one visits the garden, the students are delighted to showcase what they have planted. It is clear that they feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when they see their carrots, tomatoes, green peppers, eggplants, cabbage, kale and cucumbers growing.
This year, to make learning even more meaningful, Teacher Avecia and her students decided to add another component to their garden. With the help of the school’s PTA President, Mrs Althea Hodge, and other teachers at the school, especially Teachers Hamewatie Narine and Khonn Fleming, they created a flower garden at the school and entered it in the Anguilla Beautification Club’s Flower and Garden Show. Given the space limitations at school, they created a tyre garden in which they planted bougainvillea, allamanda, desert roses, crowns of thorns and other flowering plants. They painted the tyres in vibrant colours and they also painted gravel which they placed around the plants. As a result of their efforts in providing this burst of colour on their school premises, their garden was awarded second place in the school garden competition.
Teacher Avecia, who has a natural love for plants, is extremely proud of the work her students have done on their gardens. Beyond the requirements of the Science Curriculum, her hope is that by engaging her students in this way, eventually, at a national level, all Anguillians will see the benefits of food security and will grow local and eat local. For Teacher Avecia, the greatest reward comes not from the growth of the plants, but from seeing her students grow educationally and knowing that she actually added some value to their lives which would enable them to make something of themselves. According to her, “You don’t have to be brilliant to be 
successful”. We couldn’t agree more.
The Ministry and Department of Education congratulate the students on their work and commend Teacher Avecia and others for bringing science to life. Thanks are expressed to Mr Michael Skellekie, Principal of the Morris Vanterpool Primary School, who recommended the garden project for this month’s feature.
Please join us next month for another edition of Inside Education.
