With the new school year just started, schools in Anguilla are embarking on a number of plans with a view to providing better care for students, and to excite and inspire them as part of the learning process.
One of those schools is the Adrian T. Hazell Primary School where the highly-motivated Principal, Mrs. Tracelyn Hamilton, is in her second year, having previously served at the same level at the Arthwin Vivien Vanterpool Primary School.
Monday, this week, was the first time the newly-renovated auditorium was used since the reopening of the school. There, the over 200 students gathered for the early morning instruction and guidance session on matters of discipline, dress, decorum and security from the Principal and members of her teaching staff.
Afterwards, Mrs. Hamilton answered questions from The Anguillian newspaper on matters related to the functioning of the school: “We are doing a healthy fruit snack initiative for the children – if not everyday, at least three times a week,” she reported. “As part of that initiative Teacher Shauna [Connor] was able to obtain a brand new refrigerator, from Expan Limited, in which we can store the fruits, and we thank the company.”
The Principal went on: “We are also on a technology drive. That is something we started from the last school year. We want to increase our resources in terms of laptops, projectors, DVD players and anything else that would enhance teaching and learning. We have been raising funds and we acknowledge a contribution from Ms. Dorla Hodge on her fortieth birthday. She asked all of her friends to contribute forty US dollars and she donated all of it to the school, totalling 1,701 dollars and 64 cents. That will go a long way in helping us. Teacher Shauna has also been spearheading this. Mr. Aldo Jackson, in the United States, donated three refurbished laptops and three projectors so far. There are other persons who have committed to contributing equipment and when they deliver we will acknowledge them as well.
“Safety is very high on my agenda and so we are now on a whole school safety initiative which is being spearheaded by Teacher Sabrina. We are organising ourselves, putting drill protocols and procedures in place for different possible mishaps. We are not looking for disasters, but if we are prepared the damage would be less. We want to do fire drills, and we have done tsunami drills spearheaded by the Department of Disaster Management. At the school level, we want to do other things to help our children on how to be aware and safe at school.”
Mrs. Hamilton said that the school had undertaken to sensitise the children about the importance of a Students Council. One of the aims of the council is to launch an anti-bullying campaign to curb bullying which occurs at all schools, and to enable students to understand some of the practices that constitute such behaviour.
The Principal also spoke on an initiative which must be understood in the right context and label. “Oh, how can I forget that we have a very new initiative and research is going on here at the school,” she remembered. “At the Grade 6 level, we are piloting same gender classrooms. We have all the boys in one class and all the girls in another class. Teacher Teron, the male teacher, is teaching the boys and Teacher Joanne is teaching the girls. Last school year Grade 5 was quite a challenging class and we started to brainstorm how we can try to address the situation.
“One of the things I found is that from time to time we tend to put the blame on our children. We always say they are rude. I started to think about it and looked at our boys because they were more challenging – and this was really interrupting their learning and that of other students as well. In thinking about it, I found that there has been some research in same sexgender classroo
ms in such places like Trinidad, Antigua and St. Kitts. I decided that we are going out of the box to see if we can meet the needs of our boys. I know we are only doing it for a year, but if we can see improvements in behaviour that would be an asset, and we are hoping to see it transform to academics. Whatever little we accomplish, we will celebrate it.”
Mrs. Hamilton continued: “The teachers also got excited about it, and during the summer they started researching as well. We are now on our way with the initiative. Last week Friday I did a questionnaire with them to see how the first week of the initiative went and we will be doing that from time to time. So it is not just ad hoc. We are monitoring it. We are checking strategies: how boys respond to a male teacher with strategies that fit them [and vice versa]. Teacher Teron has tied extra matters to it – one being that if the boys complete all of their work, he would be willing to go outside the school hours and take them to Louis Price’s gym and play basketball with them. I see it as a win-win for the boys and we are excited about it and, as I said, we will continue to monitor the initiative.”
One more thing that the Principal and her staff are excited about is the new block of classrooms nearing completion. Adrian T. Hazell is the only school in Anguilla where expansion work is in progress, providing for eight classrooms, in a two-storey building, funded by the Anguilla Government. “Hopefully, the new classrooms will accommodate children from Kindergarten to Grade 3,” the Principal stated. “It is close to completion. The delayed arrival of the windows has been the hold up for a few weeks. Everything else is in place. The doors are on; there is electricity and the fans are already installed. The building is tiled and painted and we are looking forward to taking over the classrooms in the near future.”
