Mandeville, Manchester — Two years in, administrators of Mt St Joseph Catholic High in Manchester believe that “tremendous progress” has been made.

The institution, which was created to fill the need for additional space at the secondary level, opened its doors in September 2014 as a grant-aided, denominational school.

Using facilities that once housed the now defunct Roman Catholic-run St Paul of the Cross High on Manchester Road, space donated by neighbouring Mt St Joseph Preparatory and Kindergarten School and a new classroom block built by the Jamaican Government, 179 students entered at the first form and sixth form levels.

For the upcoming school year the student population is expected to increase to about 550.

In time, natural growth to just over 1000 students is expected on the approximately 8.5-acre property.

Chairman of the school board, Marcia Tai Chun, told the Jamaica Observer Central that based on a memorandum of understanding, the Government is to build four more classroom blocks and supporting facilities, such as laboratories, by 2018/2019 to accommodate the increase.

From inception, Cheryl-Anne Gayle, with 23 years of experience in education, has been tasked with the responsibility of not just leading the team but forming the ethos and standard of a new school and working to build a firm presence in the community.

She said the guiding principle is that Mt St Joseph Catholic High is to be a “school of excellence … aimed at the holistic development of the student”.

She said that the use of technology in different areas of the management of the school was emphasised.

To support the vision, Gayle said that the school is equipped with a thirty-station computer lab through the Universal Service Fund and provision made for laptops and interactive projectors for use in the classrooms.

She said that there is collaboration on “best practices” with its affiliated institution, Campion College, and Mt St Joseph has patterned the Campion curriculum.

Civics and information communication technology are among the subjects being taught in the lower school.

In line with the demands of the job market in the 21st century, the curriculum emphasises STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

The principal said that students of the school received honourable merit in their first year at the Math Olympiad, organised by the University of the West Indies, and entered and did well again this year.

Also, visual arts has been one of the vibrant programmes at Mt St Joseph Catholic High and the school has had some notable achievements to date.

Gayle said that one student this year placed first in a Jamaica South Africa Friendship Association Art Competition and that there were two pieces from the school that earned awards in the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) Visual Arts Competition.

The Drama Society, she said, excelled both at the parish and national levels for performances in the JCDC Speech Competition.

In modern languages, students from the Mt St Joseph Catholic High have been winners at a French vocabulary competition. They also medalled in the National Spanish Festival.

The Tourism Action Club participated in a Jamaica Environment Trust Research Day and made a presentation, she said.

As part of what the principal calls the “rich” learning experience to which administrators of the school intend to expose students, she said that an outreach component, which involves voluntary activities at the Mustard Seed Gift of Hope Home for disabled children, located at Spur Tree, had started.

It is expected to remain a fixture in an effort to assist in helping to build character, she said.

For Gayle, much is left to be done, including the construction of what is said to be a costly but necessary multifaceted sports facility to further push extra-curricular activities.

She described the journey of turning the vision of a new school into a reality as “intriguing”.

“You have your challenges but if you understand what you (are) doing and why you’re doing it, then that becomes a kind of focus, a reference point which allows you to be able to continue doing what you (are) doing,” said Gayle.

“We are growing. We have established a particular momentum. We seek to maintain that momentum. We are always seeking to establish and maintain very high standards. That is something we will not compromise any at all,” she added, stating that ensuring that the school has no more than thirty students in a class was crucial.

— Alicia Sutherland