Shareen Blake-Grant - Elgin Taylor

Education officers will tell you that one of the hardest things to get some teachers to do is to use the available data to inform practice. This, however, is not the case with Shareen Blake-Grant, a grade-four teacher at St John's Primary School in Spanish Town, St Catherine.

"When I get the students coming from grade three, I use the results of the Grade Three Diagnostic Test to note their strengths and weaknesses," she informed The Star.

She further explained that, based on the findings, she will know which areas to place emphasis on in her teaching. Her students recently sat the Grade Four Literacy and Numeracy tests, and she is expecting good results from them.

Blake-Grant admitted that, initially, she had some challenges with her grade-four class. These included the inability to fully comprehend passages and poor skills in mathematics.

She set about addressing this with activities in paragraphing, writing stories, and completing unfinished sentences. For mathematics, they were given hands-on, concrete activities.

The young educator, who describes herself as being creative, co-operative, resourceful and patient, is an early-childhood diploma graduate from St Joseph's Teachers' College. She plans to pursue a bachelor's degree this summer.