A number of principals at non-traditional high schools say they are worried that they may have to spend the first few months of the new academic year conducting interventions to remediate the competence and mastery deficiencies they envisage in the incoming grade seven students.

Speaking with the Jamaica Observer yesterday the educators admitted that every year there are standardisation tasks they must complete to ready primary school leavers for the secondary level curriculum, but are faced with even greater learning gaps based on the challenges of the just-concluded school year.

They explained that, though they try to boost pupils’ performance annually to arrive at better academic results, their increased fears this year are directly related to the learning interruptions caused by the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.

This follows their concerns about the 2021 Primary Exit Profile (PEP) results, released almost a month ago, which indicated that there was a slight decline in mastery from 60 per cent to 52 per cent in the average students’ performance.

At the same time, the placement score for this year was based on a narrowed field of scores as only the Grade Four Literacy, Grade Four Numeracy, Grade Four Performance Task in mathematics, Grade Four Performance Task in science, done two years ago, along with the recently sat Grade Six Ability Test, were utilised.

Principal of Charlie Smith High in St Andrew Latoya Smith told the Observer that the school is focusing on the areas of literacy and numeracy.

“We have already timetabled those two areas. We have noticed that with students coming in there is a deficiency which is worse than before in terms of reading levels, so we have to try and improve that. With students reading below grade one [pre-primer and primer level], it is going to be a challenge to do well in the different subjects. So it’s just like basic three-letter words or four-letter words, those are the simple words that they would know,” said Smith, pointing out that reading lessons will also be provided for the students, as some of them are at the “beginning” level and are reading below the pre-primer and primer level.

“It’s not anything new to us. We usually get students who are at the lower end. So we have to implement these interventions to ensure that they can improve over a period of time, especially because they have missed out a lot,” she added.

“We also have an Alternative Pathways to Secondary Education (APSE) Programme where the students are placed based on pathways and then we have our APSE coaches who work with the teachers to provide advice about how to deliver the lessons,” she said.

The school will be accommodating approximately 121 new grade 7 students, but the cohort for the grade level will be between 170 and 180 students, as preparations are being made for some of the previous grade 7 students to repeat the year.

Smith explained that the learning loss challenge is not confined to the grade 7 cohort because the school is having the challenge with other students.

“At least 60 per cent of our students would not have been online, and so we have to try now to see how best we can get them to improve in that regard,” she said.

Tarrant High School Principal Paul Hall agreed that there is a major learning gap to be filled with the use of effective interventions.

“Certainly every grade six student coming in will have to do a diagnostic test to include English and mathematics. We are not just going to accept the PEP results only. We do our own internal testing and from there we are going to group them accordingly to provide that additional help that they need to bring them where we want them to be,” he said, noting that the school is expecting 300 grade 7 students with many reading at the primer level.

He stressed that, though special interventions will be provided for the grade 7 students, there are other strategies implemented for students at other grade levels which include psychosocial care and remedial classes.

“I have an open mind, because I am cognisant of what has taken place with the effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic even on the adults. We expect some students to come and be clueless about what’s happening, so we are building a programme for the resocialisation of our students,” he said.

At Foga Road High in Clarendon, Principal Orrett Wallace said for the 250 students placed there by the PEP results for the upcoming academic year plans are being made to engage them in two days of face-to-face classes weekly, with the necessary COVID-19 protocols observed.

“We are also planning some marathons for mathematics and language arts on Saturdays for those who can make it. This is not only for grade 7, but also grade 8 who were in grade 7 last year, [who had been] missing totally from classes. So we are trying to get them back in the frame of mind of traditional teaching and learning,” said Wallace.

“We have children reading below pre-primer level. It is much harder now because it is difficult to teach these children online. The attention span is not there. They have their electronic gadgets with games and social media platforms so they cannot concentrate and there is no proper guidance from home,” he said.