Cayman Academy does well in OES inspection

The Office of Education Standards recently released their inspection report for Cayman Academy School, deeming it “good” in most areas.

The inspection, which took place in November of this year, is undertaken at least once every four years and usually involves a team of inspectors visiting each school for between two and five days. Inspectors use an agreed framework to reach their judgements. Relatively small by most school’s standards in Cayman, Cayman Academy has just 324 students aged between three and 17 years (16 with special needs), with 30 teaching staff and 11 support staff.

The demographics of the make-up of students are more than 70 per cent Caymanian, with students also hailing from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, Ireland, Dominica, Honduras, India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and the United States.

Teachers at Cayman Academy follow the new Cayman Islands National Primary Curriculum in the primary phase of the school and the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum in the Kindergarten. The curriculum in the secondary phase is organised around the requirements of the Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC) and the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams.

The report noted that students’ attainment and progress in English and mathematics were good in all phases, while science was good in the primary and secondary phases. The school’s strong, positive culture and Christian ethos across all phases led to positive attitudes to learning, good behaviour and students’ good citizenship skills, it noted, while also pointing out the quality of teaching, especially in the secondary phase. Inspectors found the use of information technology was integrated effectively across the curriculum and that they accurately self-evaluated the school’s strengths and weaknesses. Room for improvement could be found with the inspectors recommending that CSEC examinations should be undertaken in Year 11 forthwith. More opportunities for students in the Kindergarten were needed to experience investigative work, especially in science, to better promote their progress, while the school needed to also ensure that all teachers planned their lessons effectively to meet the needs of different groups of students.

Inspectors also recommended that the school improve the leadership of special educational needs by writing clear individual educational plans with personalised targets that are reviewed regularly and shared with parents and teachers.

Its overall evaluation was “good” and the inspectors noted in particular that it performed well in all major aspects of its work and the capacity of the school to improve further continued to be good.