Lodge School commits to equipping students with skills

Principal of the Lodge Secondary School, Winston Dowridge, assures that the school remains committed to ensuring that the students are equipped with the necessary skills to progress through life and survive in the 21st century.

Dowridge’s assurance came as he delivered a few remarks during the school’s Product Expo, which took place at Emerald City yesterday morning.

“We aim to present students with the opportunity to be able to develop skills in creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, communication and collaboration,” he said.

“These displays here this morning are a testament to that fact. The students’ task was to develop an original product using indigenous materials. You will see students who have mastered their subject area, namely CAPE Food and Nutrition, and developed those key skills just mentioned above, to come up with their various products.”

The Principal noted that having programmes such as the one hosted yesterday was laying the groundwork for their students to gain a better understanding of the value of education, not only in preparing them to pass exams but preparing them for life.

The students would have created tasty foods from products grown locally and Dowridge believed that considering Barbados currently spends as much as $800 million dollars per year on the importation of food, having the children create food from local products would play a beneficial role in beginning to reduce this bill.

“These displays here today, while they are a requirement for students to complete as part of the formal curriculum, are also a very important aspect of all that we are doing at the Lodge School in teaching about sustainable development,” he said.

“Going forward, all students entering the Lodge School will, from the time they enter, be able to see the connection between the subjects they are studying and the importance of sustainable development to small island states like Barbados.”

Additionally, Dowridge proudly boasted of the fact that former students, who would have inevitably gone through the programme since its inception in 2004, would have gone on to work in some of the finest hotels and restaurants in Barbados as well as become successful entrepreneurs in the food and restaurant industry.