Minister discusses the National Education Conference 2008

The Hon. Minister; Mr Alden McLaughlin appeared on 'Day Break' today to discuss Friday's National Education Conference. He was accompanied by key note speaker; Mrs Elaine Foster Allen, currently Principal of Shortwood Teachers College, Jamaica, and previously a Headteacher and HMI in the UK. The theme of the conference this year is 'Building Excellence Together' and focuses on the teacher - our most important resource.

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The structure of the conference is different this year consisting of numerous workshops considering aspects of teaching and learning. A key factor this year is that many of the presenters are from within our own education service. Additionally, for the first time, there will be a 'Market Place' of local and overseas vendors promoting a wide range of educational supplies.

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The conference starts with a Reception and preview of the Market Place this evening at Red Bay Primary School, with the National Conference starting at 8.30a.m. on Friday 29th February 2008. The opening events of the will be carried live by Radio Cayman and rebroadcast later next week.

Ministry Intern is finalist in Walkers Tse Literacy Prize

l-r: Ms Ingrid Pierce (Partner - Walkers), Mrs Mariko Jack, His Excellency Mr Stuart Jack, Helen Tse, Finalist (Leading Edge student and Ministry Intern) Appolina Bent, Mr Gareth Long.
Leading Edge student and Ministry Intern Appolina Bent was declared a finalist in the first ever Walkers Tse Literacy Competition last weekend.

With a staggering twelve hundred plus entries in this competition she did extremely well to be identified as one of the top five finalists and we all congratulate her. Her prize includes an autographed copy of Helen Tse's book and a master class on writing and the publishing process.

The overall winner was St Ignatius High school student; Brittany Borden. (GL)

Montserrat Chief Education Officer on study tour of the Cayman Islands

A student of George Town Primary School with Ms Greenaway and Principal; Ms Marie Martin

In conjunction with the Department of Education Services, we have been pleased to host a visit by the Chief Education Officer of Montserrat; Ms Kathleen Greenaway, as she undertakes a study tour of the education system of the Cayman Islands.

Ms Greenaway is specifically focusing on the many aspects of the education transformation process being undertaken in the Cayman Islands. She is also visiting a number of schools as well as attending the National Education Conference on Friday during her stay. (GL)

Students are excited by their new school!

Architect Maureen O'Shaughnessy points out aspects of the new school to George Town Primary students

The Hon. Minister addressed a meeting of George Town Primary School parents last week, along with the architects (CS&P) in the latest round of regular meetings. This was designed to keep all stakeholders involved in and excited by the design process of their new 21st century primary school.

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Especially rewarding was the real interest and excitement that parents and students expressed about the new designs and the benefits it would bring their school community. They were also able to see how previous discussions had been reflected in the latest version of the design plans. These are now at a critical stage and the local community should soon be able to see some preparatory work happening on the site.

Helen Tse, International Author, boosts literacy across the Cayman Islands

International author; Helen Tse, has really contributed to raising the profile of literacy and writing skills in schools across the Cayman Islands this year with the introduction of the Walkers Tse Literacy Prize.

Despite working locally full time as an attorney, Helen has spent hours visiting many schools talking about her book and the background to writing it. She, along with Walkers, have generously created the Walkers Tse Literacy prize with some fabulous literacy prizes, including working with Helen with the goal of writing their own books.

The response has been fantastic and amazingly there have been over one thousand entries for this competition. The winners will be announced tomorrow. (GL)

Click here for more on the Walkers Tse Literacy Prize

Learning Community - developing a team approach

The strategic decision to split the Cayman Islands into a series of 'Learning Communities' was undertaken to improve the support services to enhance student learning, support schools and reinforce the central belief that the student must be at the very centre of our entire education system.

What has also happened is the creation of a number of teams of professional colleagues with a variety of different skills designed to work together for the first time from what was previously a series of unconnected services, all focused on helping students achieve their potential.

The photograph above shows the "Western District' team including the Learning Community Leader (not shown), ICT technician, Educational Psychologist, Speech and Language Therapist, Occupational Health Therapist, Facilities Co-ordinator, Attendance Officer and Head of ICT Support Services. Whilst this is the first time that they have met as a team, everyone thought the meeting was incredibly useful and the start of real collaboration between a whole range of services - all designed to support students learning that actually talk to each other!. (GL)

Work starts on new playground...

The building of the new Beulah Smith secondary campus in West Bay will shortly impact on the infant playground at the John A Cumber Primary School. So, in preparation for this, work started Monday clearing land for a new infant playground which will, in fact, be better situated within the school campus.

There is considerable progress with the ongoing groundworks for the new campuses at Clifton Hunter in Frank Sound and Beulah Smith in West Bay. Groundworks at the John Gray Campus were completed a month ahead of schedule. (GL)

Government Primary School develops a blog of its own...

JACPS Principal; Mr Joe Wallace sharing the early stages of the school blog.

John A Cumber Primary School, a government school, is demonstrating its increasing use of technology by developing a very professional looking blog about the work that they are doing, and also specifically to follow the school link with China and the Beijing Olympics later this year.

Whilst the blog is still under development and therefore not yet 'live', its intended role is already being expanded by school management to become a really efficient tool for communicating to parents, the community and wider world. It will also be a fantastic record of what the school is doing - a virtual diary or scrapbook of school life.

The ease of 'blogging' will allow all staff to post their work and also allow students to be able to discuss their learning and post work that they are proud of. This is a great development for the whole school community and reflects the strategic focus for increasing use of ICT within the education system.

The blog address will be posted here as soon as it becomes 'live'. (GL)

Secondary teachers level with the the new curriculum

Secondary school teachers from John Gray High School, Cayman Brac High School, George Hicks Campus and the Alternate Education Centre all took part in a national exercise recently on assessment.More specifically, the group looked at criterion referenced testing in the form of levelling assessments.

This method of assessment measures students' work directly against the attainment targets in the national curriculum and assigns a level of attainment to the particular piece of work.While it was recognised that the teachers, arranged in subject groupings, would not all necessarily agree at the start of the moderation activity, by the end of the day, it was clear that two key objectives were achieved.The first was a better understanding of the curriculum documents and secondly, much needed discussion as subject groups on the issues that impact on the effective delivery of the curriculum.

While teachers continue to diligently work on doing the best for their students, this activity proved to be a useful one in further enhancing collegiality to facilitate sharing of best practices and ideas in activity setting and assessment using the national curriculum. (MR)

International Baccalaureate training for Primary Schools

All teachers and support staff from Government primary schools undertook training this week, as preparation towards the implementation of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP). The IB training supports the national focus on extending the range of teaching and learning styles in our schools to further raise standards of students achievement.

In an intensive two days staff were pleased with what they had gained and many felt they were in a strong position to incorporate new skills immediately into their work.

These two days were just one part of a extended development programme for all teachers as move towards achieving "Building Excellence Together", the new slogan for the Department of Education Services. (GL)

MInistry Stand draws great public attention

The Ministry has continued to work hard to ensure as many members of the community learn about all the developments taking place in education in the Cayman Islands. The Ministry 'stall' at the recent Agriculture Show attracted huge interest from members of the public who were keen not only to take the wide variety of literature available but also express their support for the many changes taking place.

We are making every effort to communicate the ongoing progress of the education transformation process throughout the country to try and involve everyone.

Learner Voice - Rigour and Relevance - Students talking to teachers about their preferred learning styles

Our high school students spent some time on Tuesday telling all the government high school teachers about school work that they had found rigourous and relevant. They also very clearly identified their preferred learning styles.

Clear messages included longer term work, collaborative work and work that they could help determine within set objectives. The increased use of technology was also clearly identified by a number of young people with one student requesting increased use of blue tooth technology. (One student noted that he sometimes even went back to the old ways and used books!)

Staff were genuinely impressed by the high levels of confidence and high aspirations of these young people, who represented every school and all abilities. Whilst several speakers had the audience roaring with laughter they also had some very serious messages for teachers about what made work relevant and rigourous for them.

Students also clearly articulated styles of learning that did not engage them or when their work was not valued - points effectively made with the added comment that too many of their lessons were like that.

Teachers clearly noted their comments and included them in the next session where they identified how their teaching could help develop the attributes identified for an 'educated Caymanian', as identified in the 'National Consensus for the Future of Education in the Cayman Islands'.

This is the first time that we have asked our students to talk to all our secondary teachers on this scale- a daunting task but one that they handled extremely competently.

The session was facilitiated by Theron Cosgrave and Steve Couver, associates of FNI, and is the start of professional development about the new paradigm for teaching and learning that we wish to introduce into our schools. (GL)

Students perform @ Art @ Governors

Students from the George Hicks Campus Music Department played their hearts out during the Art @ Governors show during the weekend. The opportunity for public performance adds greatly to students experiences and confidence in their music making. The music department here has a very good reputation - the standard of the public performance demonstrated just how good this group of talented young people are! Congratulations to all of them, and to their leaders Mrs Fran McConvey and Mr Mike Galvin. (GL)

Increasing public awareness of education transformation

The Ministry was well represented at 'Art@Governors' over the weekend on a display outlining the details of the education transformation process taking place. The level of interest was extremely high with scores of people taking all the literature available on the stand. Many noted how pleased they were with the comprehensive change that was taking place and thought that it was absolutley a priority for the country.

This level of interest was very encouraging. More opportunities to see this display are available this week at the Agricultural Show and the Chamber of Commernce preview on Tuesday. (GL)