The Education Ministry is reporting that there were improvements in the scores in four of the five areas that were tested in the March 2018 sitting of the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) compared with last year. It was the final sitting of the 19-year-old test, which will be replaced by the Primary Exit Profile next year.

"Good morning sirs," students in a class at the St Catherine-based Spanish Town Primary School greeted The Gleaner's news team.

"We dream and live excellence." They chirped the mantra the school administration has adopted in its quest to improve the rating of 'unsatisfactory' which the National Education Inspectorate (NEI) assigned the institution following inspection in September 2014.

"Have you received your invitation to the end-of-term lyme?" Beverley Gallimore-Vernon, principal of the Maxfield Park Primary School in St Andrew asked a vendor plying her goods across from the school's gate.

Building positive relationships among all stakeholders who interact with the institution is the cornerstone of the strategies being employed by the principal and the board to improve the school's performance.

"Teamwork makes the dream work," stated principal, Eunice McKenzie, as she relates how Scott's Hall Primary in St Mary pulled itself up from near the bottom of the school effectiveness ranking established by the National Education Inspectorate (NEI). In November 2011, the NEI graded the school's overall effectiveness as unsatisfactory. The chief inspector was very critical of the unsatisfactory quality of the leadership and management of the school, noting that the then principal had "a vision for the future development of the school but did not sufficiently involve all staff in the implementation to make it meaningful."