Sir John A Cumber Primary School is taking over a former West Bay preschool as the government adds classroom space to meet rising demand.
Education minister Rolston Anglin announced the expansion on 21 August at the Education Professionals’ Welcome Event at the John Gray High School gymnasium.
The Ministry of Education and Training acquired the former Kiddiewinks preschool site for about CI$6.5 million. The school is expected to start using the site in the coming week.
Three existing reception classes will move there alongside a new reception class, bringing the school’s total reception classes to four, according to a government press release on 25 August.
The site will also house two autism-specific classrooms for Key Stage 1 students. The school already provides autism-specific classes for Key Stage 2, and teachers have been recruited for the new classrooms.
The expansion will add six to eight new classrooms overall, Anglin said. The additional space is intended to increase capacity for younger pupils while expanding support for students with special educational needs.
Anglin said finding enough classroom space has become more difficult as the Cayman Islands’ population grows and enrolment becomes harder to predict.
“Physical classroom space is a massive problem across the system,” he said during the event.
“It makes planning for education practically impossible when you get dozens and dozens of children in a small system coming into the country and wanting to gain access to our public education system.”
Anglin said the government chose to acquire an existing property rather than wait for a new school to be built.
“I knew that we needed to move, and we needed to move swiftly,” he continued.
“Trying to build and catch up and fill the gaps was simply not going to be feasible, given our procurement rules and given the length of time it takes to build a school.”
West Bay is the fastest-growing district, according to Anglin, who said the government is concerned about how the district will accommodate students over the next five to 10 years.
“The pressures that come to bear in terms of trying to project out over the next five to 10 years of where the population in the district is going to be, was one that caused me a lot of alarm and concern,” he said.
“And so, in listening very carefully during our school tours, we ensured we did something about it.”
The West Bay expansion is part of wider changes to the government school system.
Anglin said the new Layman E Scott High School campus in Cayman Brac is expected to open during this school year.
The government has also approved about $3.7m in additional funding for specialist provision across the public education system.
“We must ensure that our children who are in most need have those needs adequately met within our education system,” Anglin said.
