Primary

About

A primary school an institution for primary education of children who are five to eleven years of age. Primary schooling proceeds pre-school and precedes secondary schooling. 

The Primary Department of the Ministry of Education is responsible for the recruitment of teachers to fill vacancies in all Government and Government Assisted Primary Schools.  It also has responsibility for the administration of teachers in all primary schools. 

The Ministry of Education has developed new Curriculum Documents for Primary Education. These envisage preparing our children with the knowledge, skills and dispositions to optimise their own development, to constitute a caring, respectful and socially conscious citizenry and to competently lead our country onto the world stage. This new primary curriculum is characterised by:  

  • A focus on nine subject areas within an integrated, thematic approach 
  • Cross-curricular development of Literacy and Numeracy 
  • Infusion of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) 
  • A prioritisation of Assessment for Learning 
  • A conscious development of Values, including HFLE 
  • Explicit attention to Differentiated Instruction to meet the needs of a range of students.

This Primary Curriculum has been implemented in Infants 1, Infants 2 and Standard 1 in the academic year since September 2013- July 2014. The Standards 2 to 5 will continue to work with and will be assessed using the previous curriculum documents to maintain continuity of students’ programmes of work. As the current Standard 1 moves to Standard 2 and each subsequent year, the new Curriculum will be introduced and so will be phased in to all year levels. 

Curriculum Services: 
Curriculum documents are available for the following nine subject areas

  1. Agricultural Science 
  2. Mathematics 
  3. English Language Arts
  4. Physical Education
  5. Science 
  6. Social Studies
  7. Spanish 
  8. Values, Character and Citizenship Education
  9. Visual and Performing Arts

Curriculum Guides for each of the year levels includes: 

  • A comprehensive Teachers’ Guide 
  • Instructional Toolkits for each year level up to Standard 3 and a composite Toolkit for Standards 4 and 5. The toolkits contain planned Units, thematic as well as subject specific core-skills learning plans, sample activities, together with rubrics to assist teachers in the implementation of this new integrated thematic curriculum. 

Services

  • Processing of applications for entry into the Teaching service 
  • Processing of Increments for  primary School Teachers  
  • Processing of the classification of Extended Sick Leave/No Pay Leave 
  • Processing of Retirement Benefits for Primary School Teachers 
  • Processing acting appointments for principals. 

Contact

The Primary Department
Human Resource Management Division
Ministry of Education
Level 7, Building A
Education Towers
No. 5 St. Vincent Street,
Port of Spain.
Phone: 1(868) 622-2181 Exts. 1600-1621 (primary section)