Students from St. Christopher’s Primary with teacher, Angela Sealy Lewis (back), posing with students after their drama piece ‘Barbados Journey to 50’.
Children from St. John’s Primary School taking part in the Inter-primary School Drama competition, doing a play entitled ‘Brown Girl In A Ring.’
DLP launches school initiative
EIGHT primary schools will go head to head in the first ever School Drama competition.
This is an initiative of the Democratic Labour Party, one of 50 events on the party’s calendar of events.
George Pilgrim, General Secretary of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP), told The Barbados Advocate during a recent interview, “ The School’s Drama competition is one of two parts of the School’s Engagement programme.”
One aspect will focus on drama for primary school students, and the other on Essay writing based on the theme ‘Journey to 50.’
Pilgrim noted, “The idea is to stimulate research, the engagement of schools through education, in respect of what occurred on our journey to 50, to say to Barbadians this competition is about tomorrow’s children.”
Part of our education project is to ensure schools are fully engaged and mobilised, not just towards our independence, but towards the importance of the history of Barbados.
He revealed, “This event is the first of its kind , and will become an annual calendar event for the Democratic Labour Party. It is not an independence activity, but one where we can see children converge and compete with each other in research and sharing of knowledge.”
At the end of the competition, each school will be given a cash prize in the respective positions of first, second and third, and an additional prize will be given to the teacher who wrote the script as part of an incentive, to show that we appreciate all they have done.
He stated, “The first prize is $2000, second prize $1500 and third prize is $1000, which the schools can use in whatever area deemed necessary.”
The grand finale of the inter-primary school competition will conclude at the George Street Auditorium, where the winners will be announced by the four judges, and persons will get the opportunity to see the winning acts.
Pilgrim noted, “This is our first year, and we are pleased with the response. Going forward, we will launch the programme from September, as opposed to the second term. This is to give students and teachers more time in preparing the skits and learning their different roles.
“In launching the programme as an academic year, we can reframe the energy, but maintain the focus, which is to encourage students to conduct and interpret research whilst learning the history of this country.”