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Weekly Current, 3 Jan. 2021

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3 Jan. 2020

Weekly Current (archived version)

Happy New Year! Today we introduce the Schools Explorer project, starting with inspection results for all Cayman Islands high schools and primary schools. We sit down for an interview with the head of Cayman Arts Festival. And more news!

Welcome to this week’s newsletter on education in the Cayman Islands.

(If you haven’t signed up for our email list yet, please consider doing so now.)

Week In Review

We’re pleased to announce the first phase in the Cayman Current’s Schools Explorer project. This is an idea we’ve been thinking about since before the official launch of the Current in September — to create a comprehensive guide to Cayman Islands schools, including basic information, standardised profiles, performance data, relevant news articles, etc.

Our hope is that, when it’s complete, the Schools Explorer will become a major portal for the community to access information about Cayman’s education system and individual schools — in addition to and in support of the Current’s daily reporting.

A foundational component of the Schools Explorer are the inspection reports produced by the Office of Education Standards. As it happened, the OES concluded its first 2-year cycle of inspections of all 53 schools in Cayman, right before the Christmas holiday. The break from the day-to-day gave us the opportunity to comb through the reports and start building a database that includes the results from all schools — with the aim of being able to compare results across schools as fairly as possible.

The first building blocks of the Schools Explorer project are a graphic that shows inspection results from the 13 schools in Cayman that offer secondary education, and then a graphic that shows results from the 25 schools that offer primary education.

Inspectors rate schools in 18 individual categories, using a scale of Weak/Satisfactory/Good/Excellent. The overall grade is determined according to the individual scores.

Here are highlights from the secondary school results:

  • No secondary schools received the highest grade of ‘Excellent’.
  • 5 of 13 schools were rated ‘Good’ — Cayman Academy, Cayman International School (CIS), Cayman Prep & High School, Hope Academy and Lighthouse School.
  • 4 schools were rated ‘Weak’ — Calvary Baptist Christian Academy, Clifton Hunter High School, Triple C School and Wesleyan Christian Academy.
  • 3 schools received ‘Excellent’ marks for students’ attainment in English — CIS, Cayman Prep and St. Ignatius Catholic School.
  • Cayman Prep and St. Ignatius received ‘Excellent’ marks for students’ attainment in Science.
  • No schools received ‘Excellent’ marks for students’ attainment in Mathematics.
  • Cayman Prep and St. Ignatius received ‘Excellent’ marks for Teaching.
  • CIS received an ‘Excellent’ rating for Staff and the Learning Environment.

(View the graphic on secondary schools here. Sort it by category. Compare schools. Follow links on the chart to read the individual inspection reports.)

Here are the highlights from the primary school results:

  • No primary schools were rated ‘Excellent’.
  • 7 of 25 schools were rated ‘Good’ — Cayman Academy, CIS, Cayman Prep, Footsteps, Hope Academy, Lighthouse School and Montessori by the Sea.
  • 5 schools were rated ‘Weak’ — Calvary Baptist Christian Academy, Savannah Primary School, Triple C School, Truth for Youth and Wesleyan Christian Academy.
  • 1 school received ‘Excellent’ marks in students’ attainment in Mathematics and Science — CIS.
  • No schools received ‘Excellent’ marks for students’ attainment in English.
  • CIS received an ‘Excellent’ rating for Staff and the Learning Environment.
  • CIS and Footsteps were rated ‘Excellent’ for Curriculum.
  • Except for Lighthouse School, no public school achieved above a ‘Satisfactory’ rating in categories related to students’ attainment or progress in the 3 core subjects of English, Mathematics and Science. (This is true for both primary and secondary schools.)

(View the graphic on primary schools here. Sort it by category. Compare schools. Follow links on the chart to read the individual inspection reports.)

We published an interview with Marius Gaina, who is Executive Director of Cayman Arts Festival.

Gaina talks about the non-profit, its emphasis on education, the organisation’s response to COVID-19 and its plans for the future.

Here are some highlights from the interview:

  • “Cayman Arts Festival started as an entertainment programme. I think the founders’ thought at all times was to add to the educational side of things. Our goal is to educate, to entertain and to inspire. Those are the 3 words we focus on.”
  • “In my opinion, today at the end of 2020, the educational side is now overshadowing the entertainment part. Our focus is now very heavily on the educational aspects.”
  • “COVID lockdowns and social distancing requirements meant that we had to stop the physical lessons, but we moved immediately online when we had the chance.”
  • The 2021 Cayman Arts Festival will take place 4-13 February, and will concentrate on local performers.
  • “We strongly believe that the audience will not feel any difference from the previous festivals because of the performers we have here. The people we have spoken with are also international performers, but they are based in Cayman. And we will also have our students performing.”
  • “Every time someone pays to attend a concert, they should be thinking that they have contributed to our students in some way or other, that when they buy a ticket they are actually supporting our afterschool programme.”

(Read the interview here.)

Around The Web

The Current is a central resource for education journalism by others, including regional and international news relevant to Cayman education. (Find our running collection of links here.)

The Week Ahead

  • Launch event Monday for University College of the Cayman Islands’ campaign to seek accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (one of the big 6 accreditation organisations in the United States).
  • A look at newly rebranded nonprofit Inclusion Cayman (formerly Special Needs Foundation Cayman)
  • Schools Explorer: An interactive graphic comparing inspection results for all Early Childhood Care and Education centres
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