The island’s move to phase out the middle school system has undergone fine-tuning after talks with school officials and an assessment by the Government.

Crystal Caesar, the education minister, announced “revised transition plans for Year 8 and M2 students” planned for the coming new academic year.

Ms Caesar added that she had met with senior school leadership teams from CedarBridge Academy, The Berkeley Institute and Sandys Secondary Middle School to review their readiness for September 2025.

All three indicated last month that meetings were required to discuss how they could best accommodate the switch to a two-tier public school system.

Ms Caesar said their teams were hard at work on finishing Signature Learning Programme courses for S4 students for 2025, as well as preparing for their incoming S1 students next September who, at present, are M3 students.

Additionally, the schools face internal and external examinations in the next few months.

Ms Caesar said: “This complexity of these critical tasks has created some unreadiness.”

She applauded the teams for “working long hours to accomplish these demands”.

Ms Caesar said that after talks on January 28, the education commissioner arranged meetings with “parish primary school principals from Francis Patton and Purvis Parish Schools, middle and senior school principals, the Department of Education and the Education Reform Unit”.

Changes to the reforms were agreed.

Ms Caesar said M2 pupils would not physically move to their senior school site this year, but remain at their respective middle school sites to complete a Y9 Senior programme.

She added: “These students will be on track and have the credits necessary to transition to Year 10 Senior School in September 2026.”

Ms Caesar said Year 8 students at the parish schools would transfer to a middle school site in September 2025, where principals were prepared for them to finish the Y9 Senior programme.

She said education officials met today with 20 parents of Year 8 students from Francis Patton and Purvis Parish Schools, and 222 parents of M2 students from Dellwood, Sandys and Whitney, to “share the framework and logistics for Y9 students for September 2025”.

Parents heard details on the Y9 programme and responses to their concerns.

Ms Caesar added: “These are the first meetings, and a second one will be arranged before the end of the school term.”