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Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Werd empowers primary school students

by

Paula Lindo
2162 days ago
20190910

prilin­do@gmail.com

To­day, Werd Coach Youth will be­gin of­fer­ing cre­ative writ­ing lessons, at the Na­tion­al Dra­ma As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T’s (NDATT) Stu­dios, lo­cat­ed at 97 South­ern Main Road, Curepe. The ses­sions, which tar­get stu­dents in Stan­dards 3 to 5, will run un­til June 2020.

Werd Coach founder Shel­ley-Ann Ed­wards-Bar­ran said she tar­get­ed those three Stan­dards for dif­fer­ent rea­sons, and ex­plained: “Stan­dard 3 is where stu­dents be­gin en­gag­ing in longer, more de­tailed writ­ing. This is the best time to get chil­dren fired up about writ­ing. Stan­dard 4 is where most par­ents re­al­ly buck­le down with their chil­dren for SEA prepa­ra­tion, and for many, anx­i­ety steps in.

“This is a good time to al­le­vi­ate fears and get the right kind of writ­ing in­struc­tion that would de­vel­op the skills need­ed for SEA and be­yond. Stan­dard 5 is the point at which pan­ic sets in, and those who are strug­gling need the most at­ten­tion. It’s not too late to ap­proach writ­ing from a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive to give stu­dents the con­fi­dence they need to write bet­ter than they’ve ever done be­fore.”

She said par­ents can en­rol their chil­dren for one, two or three terms over the aca­d­e­m­ic term.

“The class will meet from 3.30 pm to 6 pm on Tues­day af­ter­noon. Be­tween 3.30 and 4 pm, in­di­vid­ual at­ten­tion will be giv­en with class­work. From 4 to 5 pm there will be lessons, writ­ing prac­tice will take place be­tween 5 and 5.30 pm, and in­di­vid­ual work be­tween 5.30 pm to 6 pm. Class­es cost $1,200 per term, payable in three in­stal­ments of $400 each. The class will on­ly ac­com­mo­date six stu­dents, so call to reg­is­ter now.”

Ed­wards-Bar­ran said the pro­gramme was not for par­ents who are on­ly in­ter­est­ed in hav­ing their chil­dren pass SEA, and added: “This pro­gramme aims at giv­ing chil­dren an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for writ­ing, en­hanc­ing their skills, and show­ing them how to in­ter­act with words to un­der­stand what they read. These are skills for life, not just for an ex­am. It just so hap­pens that know­ing these things will al­low chil­dren to per­form well on ex­ams test­ing these skills.

“Chil­dren are go­ing to have the most fun they’ve ever had learn­ing about writ­ing and read­ing com­pre­hen­sion. Be­cause our ap­proach is dif­fer­ent, us­ing dra­ma and art and sci­en­tif­ic ex­per­i­ments to ex­plore and in­ves­ti­gate writ­ing con­cepts, chil­dren will not grow up view­ing writ­ing as a te­dious and dif­fi­cult an­noy­ance. They will ac­tu­al­ly en­joy the process and ap­pre­ci­ate the need for know­ing how to write well while they learn to write well.”

The ed­u­ca­tor, who said she will al­so be of­fer­ing class­es for stu­dents in Stan­dards 4 and 5, as well as those work­ing to­wards CSEC 2020, said: “There will be a one-week work­shop spe­cial­ly de­signed for Stan­dard 4 and Stan­dard 5 stu­dents from De­cem­ber 16 to 20.

“The morn­ing ses­sion is ded­i­cat­ed to writ­ing re­ports, the af­ter­noon ses­sion for writ­ing nar­ra­tives. Par­ents can choose which ses­sion to send their chil­dren, or send them to both. Work­books will be pro­vid­ed for each ses­sion.

“On­ly ten stu­dents will be ac­cept­ed per ses­sion. Call 349-0437 for more in­for­ma­tion and to re­serve a space. I will al­so be tu­tor­ing Eng­lish A on Tues­days and Thurs­days from 6 pm to 8 pm. This pro­gramme is geared to­ward re­peaters, old­er in­di­vid­u­als who are up­grad­ing their skills, and stu­dents who don’t thrive in main­stream in­struc­tion.”

Al­so call 393-3529 or 764-0644 for more in­for­ma­tion.

Ed­wards-Bar­ran said chil­dren need to learn to com­mu­ni­cate well in writ­ing, “and to ef­fec­tive­ly de­ci­pher oth­er peo­ple’s writ­ten com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Whether the pur­pose of com­mu­ni­ca­tion is to in­form, en­ter­tain, or per­suade, the in­ten­tion is to com­mu­ni­cate an idea.

“Ideas come when we in­ter­act with the world around us, find­ing beau­ty, solv­ing chal­lenges, think­ing about who we are and why we’re here, and that is what chil­dren need to learn.

“Cre­ative writ­ing pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn how to ex­press ideas in ways that oth­ers can un­der­stand, and how to read what oth­ers have ex­pressed and un­der­stand it for our­selves. Cre­ative writ­ing is more than nar­ra­tives, po­ems, graph­ics, and re­ports. It’s about hav­ing some­thing to say and know­ing how to say it.”


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