NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (April 10, 2013) — School management teams and principals of Nevis’ primary and secondary schools throughout Nevis, will have a clearer understanding of how to keep the necessary standardised records at their learning facilities, thanks to a one-day workshop on Record Keeping. The event organised by the Department of Education in the Nevis Island Administration (NIA), was held at the Red Cross conference room on April 10, 2013.

Education Planner in the Department of Education Dr. Neva Pemberton told the Department of Information of the rationale behind the workshop.

“Based on our Whole School Review exercise which happens bi-annually, we recognised that while schools are keeping very important records there are some inconsistencies in how the records are being kept. Some schools are keeping certain records other schools are maybe keeping another set of records and those that they are keeping commonly, they are not always being completed the same way.

“So one of the things we thought it would be important to do was bring the school administration teams together, so we can all get on the same page around what are the records that must be kept at the school and how they should then be kept. So really the workshop is in an effort to standardise record keeping practices at our primary and secondary schools,” she explained.

According to Dr. Pemberton, the facilitators drawn from the Department engage the participants in three sessions namely records which dealt with tracking students; tracking the school’s history and also  keeping inventory records.

However the aspect of records kept regarding correspondence which determined who and what came through the school and why was also on the Workshop’s agenda.

She said the Workshop was organised by a team of persons from the Department of Education and the facilitators were Mr. Laurence Richards who dealt with the session entitled Tracking the Students; Mrs. Dawnny Lanns would deal with the segment entitled Tracking School History. Mrs. Ermileta Elliott would handle the third session, Inventory and Correspondence Report.  Mrs. Palsy Wilkin, also an Education Officer, would facilitate a session on Reading Recovery and Reading Remediation.