A school that has been part of the Gordon Town hills for 130 years
Grove Primary and Infant School sits on a hillside overlooking the Hope River in the Grove District of Gordon Town, St Andrew. We are a government primary and infant school in the Ministry of Education's Region 1, and we have been teaching the children of these hills since the 1890s.
Our story
Grove opened around 1896 and has served the same rural communities ever since: Gordon Town itself, along with Cornfield, Kintyre and Mammee River. Generations of families from these districts have passed through our gates, and many of our past students still return for graduation and prizegiving each summer.
We have always been a small school, and we treat that as a strength. With a staff of eight teachers, every child is known by name, every parent is known by face, and no child slips through the cracks. Our principal, Mrs Francine Taylor Arnett, describes the school community as one that operates like a family.
"We have a nurturing environment."Mrs Francine Taylor Arnett, Principal, speaking to the Jamaica Gleaner, July 2026
What we believe
Our motto is To Strive For Excellence, and we hold every child to it in a way that fits where they are. Many children arrive at Grove reading and counting well below their grade level. Our job is to move them, steadily and kindly, until they are working at or above it. That work has paid off: our academic performance has improved every year since the COVID-19 pandemic, and children who start the year significantly behind are regularly reading at grade level by the end of it.
We also believe that a hungry child cannot learn. Grove provides lunch for every student, whether or not their family is on the PATH programme, so that no child sits in class with an empty stomach.
The school today
Grove currently teaches 87 students across the infant department and Grades 1 to 6, on a campus built for 300. That means there is room for your child, and we are actively welcoming new families from across the Gordon Town area. Our teachers spend the summer reviewing how they can strengthen their teaching for the coming term, so every September starts a little better than the last.
We know the wider picture too: more than 600 of Jamaica's 732 primary schools are now under capacity as birth rates fall and families move towards town. Grove's answer is to be the kind of school that families choose on purpose, for the care and attention their children receive here.
Leadership and staff
Grove is led by Principal Mrs Francine Taylor Arnett and a teaching staff of eight, supported by ancillary staff, the school board and an active parent community.