THE SCHOOL’S MOTTO is Champions In Training. Its philosophy is a child that reads is a child that succeeds.
From age four to six, students at Trinity Academy learn to read. At seven and beyond it is about reading to learn.
That Trinity Academy Primary School has the top two spellers in the Lime and Agrofest Spelling Bee competitions in Gavin Howard and Matthew Clarke, respectively, should not be in the least surprising.
Neither is the fact that the Christian school emerged champions in both.
The team made up of Class 4 students Ruth Blackett, Gabrielle Greene, Howard and Clarke won from 16 other teams in the Agrofest competition in February. It was an improvement on their second place last year.
Back in November 2010, Blackman, Howard and Clarke and substitute Raphael Lowe got past 42 other teams for the top prizes in the Lime competition. The winning prizes include a trip to Washington DC in June, where they will get to see a national Spelling Bee competition.
The trip to DC was a definite pull for the students, but class teacher Faling Odle said the students worked hard preparing for both. She said the class did a lot of research looking for words, spelling and blends and were taught word-attack skills.
Clarke, the top speller in the Agrofest contest, said he was proud to finish at the top. He added he practised so much that he spoke in his sleep.
Howard was equally proud. He said the Lime competition, which he topped, was much more difficult. He said they were only given one shot at a word, and that most of them were in French and Spanish. Fortunately for him, he had studied Arabic, Spanish and French.
Principal Dr Michael Crichlow said he wanted the children to be involved in Spelling Bee at international level and was looking forward to the day when Barbadian students would be participating in international competition.
“We have cyclists [and] netballers performing for Barbados, why not spelling? I figure if people can represent the nation for sports, why not academics?” Crichlow queried.
Trinity also had the top Common Entrance class in 2010, with ten of the 19 top achievers.“Something is working,” Crichlow boasted.
