Sav Inclusive Academy to Add Grade Six in Upcoming School Year

The Savanna-la-Mar (Sav) Inclusive Academy in Westmoreland is to expand its academic offering with the introduction of a grade-six class in the upcoming school year.

Chairman of the Academy, Peter Rose, who made the disclosure during a special tour of the institution on June 13, told JIS News that this development will allow students who entered the school as three-year-olds to complete their entire primary education journey within the academy’s walls.

Mr. Rose noted that this milestone aims to pave the way to gradually establish a high school, with grade seven to follow as the institution continues building towards the vision of comprehensive secondary education.

“We’re growing a grade a year, and we ultimately want to be able to establish a high school,” he said.

The academy, a flagship project of the Rockhouse Foundation, was conceived as a model of inclusivity that caters to children with neurological and physical disorders among other disabilities, together in the same classrooms.

Since opening its doors in 2017 with just 30 three-year-old students, the school has grown steadily and now accommodates 235 students from pre-kindergarten to grade five.

“I feel this mixture of incredible joy with the progress [so far] and then reflect always on the fact that we need more [special needs schools]. We need more of this throughout Jamaica,” outlined Mr. Rose, who is President of the Rockhouse Foundation.

“The challenges of families with children who have some physical or neurological disorder is just huge and very often, the children get no therapy at all. As a consequence, it really defines their life from the very outset,” he added.

Nonetheless, the academy has been doing all it can to address the educational and social development needs of the students enrolled, said Mr. Rose.

The school also facilitates therapy sessions for non-enrolled children, in a bid to address the wider need in the community, Mr. Rose said.

“We have so many people who want their children here that we have to employ a lottery to select the children. At the Rockhouse Foundation, we believe deeply in equity, and the only way to make it fair is if we do blind selections,” he explained.

“This school is also a partnership between the Rockhouse Foundation and the Ministry of Education. Rockhouse Foundation has conceived and constructed the school and our agreement with the Ministry is that we’ll build the facility, we’ll make sure that the resources are here in terms of equipment and so forth, and then they will pay the underlying salary costs of staff and even the therapists,” Mr. Rose noted.

The Sav Inclusive Academy has been operating since 2003.

The Foundation’s first initiative involved completely renovating and modernising the Negril All-Age School in 2004.

Over subsequent years, the Foundation has raised and invested more than US$10 million in educational projects throughout Westmoreland.

The tour of the school included a special visit from foreign guests and representatives from the US Embassy.

A hotel guest who witnessed the rescue of an injured pelican at the Rockhouse Hotel was inspired to write and illustrate a children’s book about the experience.

Working with a Jamaican illustrator, she produced copies for all 235 students enrolled at the academy and spent time reading to the children on the day.

Additionally, the US Embassy team was present to observe an online literacy and numeracy programme they have funded.