Garvin Tynes Primary School Wins "Science Matters" for the Third Time

Tue, Mar 31st 2015, 04:55 PM

For the third time Garvin Tynes Primary School has won the annual Science Talk Competition, “Science Matters.”The 4th Annual Science Talk Competition, held this year at Uriah McPee Primary School, is an initiative introduced by the Primary Science Unit of the Department of Education.

It is a competition developed for fourth grade students at the primary and all aged schools throughout the islands. The content is based on the primary school science curriculum and topic questions focus on “life,” “earth,” “space” and “physical science.” The goal of the competition is to promote and increase interest in science among students” and the objective is to “provide a forum for interaction and friendly competition among primary school students” while “strengthening oral communication.”

Each district in New Providence participated in this year’s competition, along with representatives from the Long Island District. Garvin Tynes Primary School represented the Southwestern District; T.G. Glover Primary School from the Northwestern District; Sadie Curtis Primary School from the Southeastern District, Thelma Gibson Primary School from the Northeastern District and Lower Deadman’s Cay Primary School, from the Long Island District.

After the completion of one individual and three group rounds of competition the winners emerged. Trophies were awarded first, to all of the District winners and participants and then to the winners of the Final Competition. Thelma Gibson Primary School placed fifth; Sadie Curtis Primary School placed fourth; Lower Deadman’s Cay Primary School placed third with 65 points; T.G. Glover Primary School took second place, with 66 points, and Garvin Tynes Primary School won with a total of 70 out of 100 points.

The members of the winning team were all very excited about winning the competition. Mrs. Ronique Curry, the Science Coordinator at Garvin Tynes Primary School, was very pleased that the school has won the competition for the third time in its four years of existence and she, “attributed the student’s success to teamwork between the grade four teachers, the parents and the administration.” She went further to state that she uses a particular strategy to prepare the students for competition but would not reveal the school’s secret to success.

Mrs. Barbara Dorsett, Senior Education Officer for Primary Science disclosed that 17 schools participated in the overall competition. She noted that “the overall performance of the students was better than last year,” and so she was satisfied that the competition is developing and coming into its own.

Dorsett added; “what we are trying to achieve is to make sure that our children can speak on the topic of science and articulate the information in a confident, competent and effective manner and at the same time, have fun.” She asked that all teachers use the science talk strategy in the classroom so that the manner of the competition is not foreign to students.

Dorsett concluded the event by stating that one of the goals for next year is to get more of the family islands to participate and to introduce the private schools to the competition. Dorsett stated that private schools have intentionally been left out by the committee thus far to allow public school students, “to experience some success first.” Dorsett further implored teachers to use a variety of teaching strategies in the science classroom so that more young men would become excited about science and therefore be encouraged to participate in the competition. Dorsett highlighted that an all-male team of students won in 2013, but she would like see more than a sprinkling of young men in the competition.

                                                                     

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