All Saints breaks ground for classrooms

All Saints Primary School will soon have a new building to ease congestion in its classrooms. The two-storey structure, when finished, will house a kitchen and dining room for the feeding programme, three classrooms, a teacher’s lounge and four bathrooms. On hand for today’s groundbreaking ceremonies was Freetown area-representative Jorge Espat and All Saint’s Principal Vetaline Thompson.

Jorge Espat, Area Representative, Freetown

“The school is a successful school and it now has about five hundred and thirty-five students, so obviously there is a lot of overcrowded classrooms. There is need for space and in fact the principal has given up her office, which has been converted into a classroom. That speaks for the commitment of the twenty-member faculty at All Saints. And obviously, we recognise the need for a conducive environment where young people will learn, and this I think today, will facilitate that objective of providing an atmosphere where our teachers can provide a challenge for our students to learn as well as have our students excited about learning. So this is primarily the purpose to build the fifty by twenty-five two storey concrete building.”

Vetaline Thompson, Principal All Saints

“This means a lot to us because we have waited so long. At present our school is over crowded. One classroom has fifty-two children in it; that’s Standard Six. As the Minister mentioned, my office space is now being used for a class, so I am without an office, but trying to operate as best as I can. So it’s indeed very good for us to get a new school.”

The new school building is expected to be ready by August and it comes with a price tag of one hundred and ninety-two thousand dollars.