Campbell’s Castle All Age Making Strides

Campbell’s Castle All-Age School, located in the hills of South Manchester, has been making significant strides in education.

The institution, founded in 1872, continues to excel in its academic and extra-curricular activities. Over the last few years, the school, which has a population of 175 students and eight teachers, has seen steady improvements in both the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) and the Grade Four Literacy Test.

In 2013, it won the prestigious Aubrey Phillips Memorial scholarship for the student with the highest (GSAT) average for primary schools in Manchester. The award was given to Anni-Vee Moore, who received an average score of 97.5 per cent.

The following year, Campbell’s Castle placed first in the Ministry of Education’s GSAT ranking in the Primary School section, for the parish of Manchester.

That same year, the institution also saw a 96 per cent pass rate in the Grade Four Literacy Test. Additionally, for the past three years, the school has won the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) district spelling competition for the Grades one to three category.

Principal of the school, Rev. Owen Lambert, credits the institution’s success to hard work, dedication and strategic planning.

“We set targets for all our classes, including our GSAT class. Not only that, we have to work towards those targets, we don’t set them in isolation – that’s number one,” Rev. Lambert says.

He also has high praise for his hard working and dedicated cadre of teachers, who are all eminently qualified.

“It’s a very good group of hard-working teachers.  They understand the school’s mission statement, which is to ‘promote a supportive and challenging learning environment by creating bridges between the school, stakeholders, the community and students’,” Rev. Lambert tells JIS News.

The Principal says a part of the school’s mission is to meet the mental, physical, emotional and academic needs of all students.

He points out that all the necessary resources from the Education Ministry and the community are used to create an atmosphere that motivates students and teachers to become productive, lifelong learners.

With this as their mantra, it is no surprise that the school not only performs well in academics, but also in extra-curricular activities.

The school has won several trophies from the 4-H Clubs competition, both at the national and parish levels.

Rev. Lambert, who became Principal of the school in 1995, says the institution has come a far way.

“I took over a school with 50 students only…. and nobody wanted to come to this school. For five years before I came here, the school passed no exams at all, whether technical entrance, common entrance or Grade Nine Achievement Test,” he says.

“Of course, I had to go to the drawing board, because as a new Principal, you had to look at what was happening and what was wrong. We had to retrain the teachers. It was a lot of in-house training…and then we started to get the results and they are getting better,” he adds.

Rev. Lambert says as the institution continues along the path of success, one of the main goals is to continue to impart to both students and teachers the message that education is a lifelong journey.

The Principal says he is confident that with sustained effort, hard work and unwavering dedication, Campbell’s Castle will continue to succeed.

“My long-term goal is to see every child who comes here passing the Grade Four Literacy (Test) and doing well in the Grade Six (Test) and we are reaching there,” Rev. Lambert tells JIS News.