The schools

Wolmer’s Preparatory, Learning and Enrichment Centre

Wolmer’s Preparatory, Learning and Enrichment Centre sits at 10 Connolley Avenue, Kingston 4 — the Cavaliers site it has occupied since the 1960s. Miss Skempton, then headmistress of Wolmer’s Trust High School for Girls, opened it on 16 September 1941 with six little girls, as a feeder for the girls’ school. Boys have been admitted since 1957. A pre-school followed in September 1993, from age two.

The Learning and Enrichment Centre is what sets the Prep apart. A Special Education Department opened in September 2004; the Centre itself in September 2011 — support for children with diagnosed learning differences, and enrichment, inside the same school rather than bolted on next door. Work is one-to-one and in small groups, with individual plans, and the aim of returning children to the mainstream with as little scaffolding as they need.

On the same campus: a multi-purpose court, two fields, a dance studio, music room, science lab, art room, hall, library, maker space, and a sick bay with a full-time registered nurse. It shares swimming, and a cricket and track field, with Wolmer’s Trust High School for Girls.

10 Connolley Avenue, Kingston 4

(876) 922-5316 · (876) 538-0866 · wolmers.org/wps

Wolmer’s Trust High School for Girls

The Ministry of Education has charge of the school. The Trust has oversight and aspects of management, and owns the land.

Wolmer’s Trust High School for Girls has stood as its own school since 1896, when the Trust separated the girls’ and boys’ divisions and appointed independent heads. The campus is at 2A Marescaux Road, Kingston 5, on the ground the schools took after the 1907 earthquake — north of what is now National Heroes Park.

Girls share a swimming pool and a cricket and track field with the Prep. The joint sixth-form block, Glasspole House, was completed in 1984 for both high schools. In 2024 the three Trust campuses, Girls included, went onto a 954-panel solar array — a gift that now runs lights and cooling across the group.

Write the Trust or call the Girls switchboard. The Girls website is offline.

2A Marescaux Road, Kingston 5

(876) 924-9669 · (876) 948-2770

Wolmer’s Trust High School for Boys

The Ministry of Education has charge of the school. The Trust has oversight and aspects of management, and owns the land.

Wolmer’s Trust High School for Boys is the continuation of the free school John Wolmer endowed in 1729 — the oldest high school in the English-speaking Caribbean. After the 1907 earthquake the school moved to the Quebec lands and opened new buildings at Quebec Lodge in January 1909. It remains at National Heroes Circle, Kingston 4.

Philip Sherlock put in the house system in 1937 — Crosse, Wolfe, Harrison and Patterson. The joint sixth form with Girls followed in 1984. After twenty-three years without a hall, ground was broken for the Douglas Orane Auditorium on 5 September 2014; it was dedicated in 2015. The Boys’ choir is filmed on the Trust’s own channel.

The Gleaner in 2015 counted 23 Rhodes Scholars from the three schools since 1904. The newer campus site is wolmersboysschool.edu.jm.

National Heroes Circle, Kingston 4

(876) 922-8678 · (876) 922-4055 · wolmersboysschool.edu.jm