STUDENTS of the Albion Basic School in St James who have for years been forced to attend classes in the small lunch room at the back of the Moravian Church will soon see a big change.

A mere blackboard separated the younger children from their older schoolmates while the two teachers are forced to speak barely above a whisper so they do not disturb each other in the poorly ventilated room.

But the situation is expected to significantly improve in the coming weeks with the completion of a new $30-million building being built by the European Union under its Poverty Reduction Programme.

One student, four-year-old Omelia Williams said she can hardly wait to “move into her new school with the big windows”. She is equally excited about the creation of a playground as they do not have access to a recreational space.

“Them a build a school and them a build it with big windows,” Omelia told the Observer during a recent visit to the school.

According to the little girl, the windows will allow “cool breeze to come in when it gets hot”.

Principal of the school, Grace Lyttle-Gordon said it has been very difficult operating out of the church’s lunch room, although that has been a step up from the church hall where classes were initially conducted.

“… I had to move around quite a bit of things to accommodate the children,” the principal said, pointing to items stacked on top of each other in the very crammed space.

The three, four and five-year-olds at the school, who number 23, have been split into two groups instead of the required three.

She explained that they often have group sessions because of the limited space. However, when they must split into age groups, Lyttle-Gordon said this poses a challenge as both groups are only separated by a thin 8×4 ply sheet.

“Now with the new building each age group of children will be able to have their own classroom,” she said, beaming.

Although the basic school serves several communities, among them the impoverished areas of Norwood, Melbourne, Albion and Sun Valley, Lyttle-Gordon said some people are not aware of its existence because it is at the back of the church.

Ambassador of the EU delegation to Jamaica, Marco Mazzocchi Alemanni recently visited the school to view the new building which is still under construction.

The ambassador, who sat among the students in the crammed and hot church lunch room, wanted to know how the new building would improve the learning capabilities of the students, as well as its greater impact on the wider community.

The principal explained that the school is already examining how the new building might be used to facilitate training for community members, which will include a number of the parents.

“During our parent/teachers’ meeting we realised that parents were asking for skills training and so we will look to see how we could work this training in after school,” she said. She, however, pointed out that the school would also require some computers to assist in this training as well as to expose the students to the technology.

“We try to help with that (computers) but only if the work (project) is completed on time,” the ambassador said.

According to the principal, the new building, which has been constructed on land leased to the school by the church, will also allow the institution to meet the stipulation under the Early Childhood Commission.

She said following an inspection by officers of the commission, the school was informed that it needed to have separate bathrooms for boys, girls and staff, instead of the one facility which now serves everyone.

Lyttle-Gordon said although the school wanted to meet the commission’s requirement, they could not since the facility is not their own.

“But with the new school we will now have certain square feet of space for each child,” she told the Observer, adding that given the size of the classrooms each will be able to accommodate up to 35 children.

Parent Shamar Wright said it is a great feeling to know that the children will soon be removed from the ‘stifling’ lunch room.

“It is a great feeling to know the school is leaving from where it is to a great place because the community needed this for a long time,” she said.

She said her daughter Nikketa Bowen who has been attending the school for the past two years is just as excited about the new school.

“Everyday she comes home and say ‘mommy I see some people working on the new school and a want it to hurry up and finish’,” she said

At the same time, principal of the Albion Primary and Junior High Lenoval Morle said it was very important that the students have a good facility to learn in.

“With this building the learning environment for students will be certainly enhanced,” he told the Observer.

The community, he said, has been motivated by the EU’s gesture. “It is more motivational for them to feel like other people care,” he said.