MONTEGO BAY, St James — Aldon Lettman cannot find enough space for students who attend his evening and Saturday classes.

This is because parents of students seeking to sit Primary Exit Profile (PEP) exams have heard about his success and have been pushing to have their children join his classes even if they don’t attend St James Preparatory School where he teaches.

“They call me the PEP man,” Lettman told the Jamaica Observer.

“I am humbled because, let me tell you something… I’ve been in the barbershop and they are talking about me and they don’t know it is me. They don’t know it’s me who name Mr Lettman,” said the educator who is in his 30s.

He said he once heard a parent talking about getting his child into St James Preparatory full time so that he could benefit from the tutelage that Lettman offers his students.

“Over the years I’ve become the staple of PEP when it comes to extra classes and all that because I don’t just teach St James Prep students, I do tutoring on the outside — house calls and all of that,” he explained.

“I teach students from every single school in Montego Bay, from other prep schools and public schools,” Lettman disclosed.

A University of the West Indies alumnus, he began his sojourn in teaching 13 years ago. He has spent the last 11 years at St James Prep, which is located on St Clavers Avenue in downtown Montego Bay. He teaches a variety of subjects, but his area of focus is mathematics.

Popular educator Aldon Lettman proudly displays a plaque St James Prep administrators gave him for his outstanding work with PEP students.

He is familiar with parents trying to get their children into St James Prep after taking his weekend class.

“Sometimes they’ll come and they will say that the child failed in grade five and not doing well and if I can do something. Sometimes it’s because of my Saturday classes; they’ll be a part of it and they realise the improvement and see the work so they decide that they want the move,” Lettman disclosed.

“I’ve been taking them. I realise that they weren’t doing well and I could take them and send them to their… first choice school, traditional high schools,” he related.

He said with the work he and his peers have been doing with students from grades four to six, St James Prep has since become a much-sought-after school for primary education.

According to Lettman, students’ success is seen in the Government scholarships, prizes, and competition wins they have accumulated.

“We have quite a few academic trophies,” he said with pride.

He thinks he has had a hand in these successes because he puts a lot into making sure his students understand the material he is teaching.

“They know that they can come to me and they can say, ‘I don’t understand, even after the 15th time.’ I won’t be the one to say, ‘I told you five times already, why can’t you get it?’” Lettman told the Sunday Observer.

“What I do is I try other ways. If I see this way is not working, I am going to find some other way. I am going to go home and do some research and come back with another technique,” he explained.

He also tries to make his classroom fun and ensure students feel comfortable as he delivers his lessons.

“I am entitled to a class, but I teach individuals, so I will have 40 students in the class but I reach every single individual. And I am not a sitting teacher, I don’t use chair, I’m always walking,” he declared.

Shantel Harwood, whose son benefited from Lettman’s teaching, was effusive in her praise for the educator.

“Mr Lettman, he stands out, he is just incredible. He’s the best grade six teacher; I can say [that] with no form of doubt, no apologies; he is the best,” she told the Sunday Observer.

Harwood is confident that, because of Lettman’s help, her son will be attending Herbert Morrison Technical High School when PEP results are announced.

“This man is very dedicated to his work and he loves his students; and I’m not just talking about my child, I’m talking about all the students. Once you step into his classroom, you and every other child belong to Mr Lettman. That means when you leave his classroom, you’re going to speak so highly about him based on the work that he would have done and put in,” she said.

Fellow parent Shaeon Allen highlighted some of Lettman’s methods that she thinks have contributed to his students’ success.

“One of the techniques I have seen him [employ] is to use a child who has advanced in the lesson and pair that child with one who is struggling so that if at any given point the child needs support and Mr Lettman can’t do it immediately, there is someone else there who can help the child,” she disclosed.

“He’s also very receptive to feedback. I might tell him my daughter learns visually, so he will [adjust to meet her needs]. He has them singing bits and pieces of the lesson so that they can retain the information, he puts a bit of everything into it,” she said.

Allen is also impressed by Lettman’s willingness to go the extra mile to reach his students.

“For Saturday, classes might end at 3:00, [but] he spends an additional hour for anybody who doesn’t understand anything in that class or for the child who didn’t understand something in extra classes,” he said.

“He will tell students, ‘If you don’t understand something in class and you’ve left, give me a call in the night or on the weekend and I will sit down and go through with you’,” she added.

Nikeisha Grant also had high praise for the educator who she said played a major role in preparing her son for high school.

“He puts out the extra effort, the care is evident, the passion is evident in the way he interacts with the students and the way he carries himself in the classroom,” she said.

Lettman told the Sunday Observer that being a teacher is a labour of love and he is right where he wants to be.

“I’ve had countless opportunities to go into the public school system, but it would have stopped some of the things that I can do, also because you are committed to [working at one school] and just there,’ he explained.

“Some of the students that I have interacted with, I probably couldn’t have done that, and some of the students probably couldn’t come to my class in the evening or come to my class on a Saturday,” he added.

He believes God has placed him where he is for a reason.

“There have been opportunities overseas and other professional areas of career, a lot of other job opportunities, and when you look at the salary, it’s astounding, it’s very attractive. But I can tell you this, if you put me somewhere that I don’t have the passion and you give me a lot of money, I will be unhappy. I don’t want to be unhappy and rich, I rather be a happy regular person,” said the educator.

With the final part of PEP exams now concluded for 2025, he no longer offers extra lessons for that batch of grade six students; however, he continues extra lessons for students in grades four and five.

“At the end of the day you want the students transitioning to grade six with good grades also. That simply means it takes less stress and pressure off those children to come, and they can relax and at least enjoy classes. When they are relaxed, they learn better,” Lettman said.