Melissa puts PE on pause in some western Jamaica schools

As temporary classrooms take over playing areas of some schools in St Elizabeth, principal of Carisbrook Primary and Infant School Patrick Malcolm is warning that physical education (PE) is becoming an unfortunate casualty of the push to get damaged schools functioning again. According to Malcolm, this reflects a wider tendency to treat PE and sport as less important than academic subjects, despite their role in developing healthy, well-rounded children. The concern is particularly acute at Maggotty High School, where temporary classrooms have left the school without enough space to conduct practical PE sessions, and properly facilitate its netball and football programmes.

Maggotty High’s Principal Sean Graham said the school has been forced to make a significant adjustment, with practical PE sessions put on hold for the current term while administrators work around the loss of playing space. “The PE teacher expressed concern in terms of how she will facilitate training... because the school does not have a big enough play field. We also facilitate some level of football training here as well, especially for the junior team. So, those are going to be compromised, and we are going to have to find other ways to work it out,” Graham told the Jamaica Observer on Monday. He said the school understands the urgency of getting students back into suitable classrooms, but stressed that the temporary arrangement cannot be allowed to become prolonged. Trophies on display at the Carisbrook Primary and Infant School. Naphtali Junior “But we have to figure it out. Because the most important thing is to have the students here. All PE sessions for this term have to be theory-based. So, that is why I really still have to insist that by December, temporary classrooms have to be gone,…