THERE is a place where parents do homework. A place where it is the children who insist, threaten, applaud and even help out.

The tables turned a month ago, and it was turned by a determined first grade teacher, her colleagues and nearly 100 small children at Melrose Primary and Junior High - a sleeping giant tucked away in Kingston's inner city.

WE DID IT: Several proud parents display their certificates after a mini-graduation ceremony held for them at the institution last Wednesday. (Photo: Lionel Rookwood)

It happened when first grade students kept returning to school with their homework undone, and Senior Teacher Lenna Wright decided it was time the school took matters into its own hands.

"The parents were not supporting the children. The children were going home with their assignment and coming back with it undone, so we called in the parents last term (April)," Wright told the Sunday Observer recently.
"We realised that if we were going to transform education we must go into the homes, and, so we called in the parents and said, 'you are going to help us'," Wright said.

It was then they discovered that parents were more than willing to help their children, but some could not because they were handicapped by an inability to read, and even write in some cases. Still, others needed some motivation.

"Some of them couldn't read, and they wanted us to help," Wright explained. The only problem was that given the school's tight budget, where would they find suitable resources for at least 50 parents?
The solution came from an unlikely, yet clearly original source - the Bible.

"We decided to use the Bible because we wanted them to read; and the available book for all 50 of them was the Bible. So, we started reading from it, and we also developed exercises using the lessons," Wright shared.

And so the task of educating the parents began in earnest, and the unusual partnership between children and teachers was a hit.
"We have roughly 86 children, 50 parents signed on and an additional 22 have indicated an interest.

The children motivate their parents, they go home and they pressure their parents to do the lessons, they take the lessons to us, and we mark it and they take it back to the parents.

They are enthused in assisting with the process of their parents wanting to learn," Wright told the Sunday Observer.

The idea, she said, caught on like wildfire; so much so that the Caribbean Centre of Excellence for Teacher Training (Caribbean CETT), which is a part of the school's grade one programme, joined in and provided a reading specialist to conduct reading lessons.

"They came and they gave the first five reading lessons, to go with the 12 Bible lessons. So, in all, parents did 17 lessons and that helped to motivate them to read," Wright said.

She said several parents have since indicated a desire to further their education, while others who have literacy challenges have asked for assistance. The initiative is to receive further backing from Caribbean CETT through evening classes and the HEART Trust/NTA, which will be providing training in computer literacy.

In fact, since the parents started doing their 'homework', the performance of their children improved by some 40 per cent.

Seven-year-old Jordan Thomas is one student who 'loves to read and write', and although his mother is deaf and mute, he wanted her to be part of the initiative.

The pint-sized pupil has been working with what life has handed him. Jordan, who says his father taught him how to sign, told the Sunday Observer that he helps his mother with her homework and she helps him with his as well.

"She signs and tells me what to do, and when she needs help to spell a word, I sign the letters of the alphabet for her," he told the Sunday Observer.

And the parents are also hailing the school for taking such a bold step.
Thirty-eight-year-old Christopher Morrison loves the idea of 'showing up' for his seven-year-old child.

"I doing what I have to do as a father. The mother roll through sometimes, but if mi can do more, me will roll through. Unfortunately, for some of the fathers them who don't really business and it normally bring a price when yuh don't care... I can't give him everything, but I can give him time.
"Pickney nuh really bizniz bout no whole heap a pretty nutten, dem just want to si modda and fadah show up and, once yuh show up, it do a whole lot," he said.

Neville Smith, a 40-year-old welder who has a six-year-old daughter attending the school, said the initiative is "very encouraging".

"I plan to go on. I have a lot of friends from my area who have children here, so we get together and do a thing," he told the Sunday Observer.
For 32-year-old mother of four Stephanie Burrell, it's "hats off to Melrose".

"There is better understanding between me and my six-year-old. I can teach her, and she can teach me in a lot of ways. I am seeing a lot of improvements because she was really slow, but now I see that she has potential; I was frightened to see how far she has come.

"All who want to talk about prep school can talk, I lift my hat to Melrose," she added.

Meanwhile, school principal Jennifer Lee said she took the suggestion in her stride, as over the years she has got used to the idea of Melrose becoming more than a school.

"We are one of the prime socialising agents, and so we had to take unto ourselves educating the parents," Lee said.

Situated as it is, in the inner city with a student body drawn mainly from the lower income households, Lee said the multi-stakeholder effort was a testament of their belief in the children and compassion for their lot in life.
"It's so difficult for children in some of these areas who are bogged down with so many other issues - the crime, the house burning out and being traumatised with so many issues. Yet, they are one of the most talented set of children. They are very good; anything you take them at, they are good at it," she said.

She pointed out that the school, while not a technical high school, had introduced several streams including cosmetology, competitive sports and agriculture to cater to the different learning needs and interests.
"They learn how to do barbering, hairdressing, manicure, pedicure, and facials. Some are interested in sports, so we use sports and we take them to Miami Classics twice yearly, and we have netballers on the national team," she shared.

For Corrine Richards, special educator at the Caribbean CETT, it's the best news in a long time from "an area where the only things that are announced is how many people are murdered".

She said the initiative was one effective way of challenging the 'misconceptions' held about persons who are from inner-city communities.

"Nobody must tell them they cannot be anything they want to be because they were not born in a particular geographic location; no one can tell them what they cannot be. Where you live has nothing to do with who you become," she said.

The Caribbean CETT trains and empowers teachers who work with children in rural and urban poor communities across the Caribbean.