On the day of the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion on Ju­ly 1, many chil­dren would have re­ceived hugs, kiss­es, pep talks, prayers, moral sup­port and cheers from their par­ents and sib­lings as they head to write the ex­am.

Eleven-year-old Ary­on Bachue's par­ents and sib­ling could not be with him on that mo­men­tous day as his fa­ther was hos­pi­talised with COVID-19 and his moth­er and broth­er were quar­an­tined at home be­cause of the virus.

He did not see his fam­i­ly for weeks as he had test­ed neg­a­tive and had to stay and study at a rel­a­tive's home.

In ad­di­tion, Ary­on had bro­ken his writ­ing arm ear­li­er and his fin­gers were still not func­tion­ing as well as be­fore the in­jury.

His now-for­mer school, Pe­nal Rock Pres­by­ter­ian School al­most had to re­quest an emer­gency con­ces­sion for him.

Nev­er­the­less, Ary­on showed his grit and de­ter­mi­na­tion to write the SEA ex­am and passed for his sec­ond choice, but his per­son­al pref­er­ence, Shi­va Boys' Hin­du Col­lege.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian from his home in Pe­nal, Ary­on said "My mom­my, Shar­rly Bachue, younger broth­er, Aiden and my fa­ther, Visham Bachue came down with COVID-19.

"Mom and Aiden had to quar­an­tine at home, but dad got re­al­ly sick and had to be tak­en to the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal.

"My re­sults were neg­a­tive and I had to go by a rel­a­tive not too far from here. "I missed them a lot, it was hard to con­cen­trate and study, but I fo­cused on my work in the SEA ex­am and did my best for them and my teach­ers."

He said Ms Eva Rag­bir taught him his on­line lessons via his tablet.

Ary­on dis­closed that the ac­tu­al SEA ex­am did not present him with any chal­lenges, his favourite sub­jects were Math­e­mat­ics and Cre­ative Writ­ing, how­ev­er his left hand, his writ­ing hand, was not com­plete­ly healed.

He re­lat­ed that dur­ing last year's Christ­mas week while rid­ing the bi­cy­cle he re­ceived as a gift, one of the tyres flew and he fell frac­tur­ing his left hand.

Ary­on's hand was placed in a cast and his moth­er had to help him write dur­ing his on­line class­es.

He was ex­cit­ed to pass for the school he want­ed, and on­ly one oth­er friend was go­ing to the same school as him.

Ary­on said, how­ev­er, that he will still be in con­tact with his school­mates as many of them live near­by, he can chat with his friends and al­so play games with them on­line.

In his spare time, he plays with his two dogs, Jan­go and Poly, he likes the out­doors and play­ing crick­et.

Ary­on likes home-cooked food the best, one of his favourite dish­es is his moth­er's stewed chick­en, and veg­eta­bles such as cu­cum­ber let­tuce, and sweet pep­per.

He wants to be a fire­man when he grows up.

Shar­rly Bachue, Ary­on's moth­er dis­closed that he stayed with a rel­a­tive for one month while they were in quar­an­tine and it was that rel­a­tive who car­ried him to sit the SEA ex­am.

Bachue broke out laugh­ing as she de­scribed when she re­ceived the news that Ary­on had passed for his pre­ferred school. She could not be­lieve it, was in shock and could not talk ini­tial­ly.

She was proud that he did well and as he al­ways want­ed to go to Shi­va Boys' Hin­du Col­lege. Bachue said his teacher Ms Rag­bir en­cour­aged her to put Iere High School as his first choice, but Ary­on re­al­ly want­ed Shi­va Boys' as his first choice. "God let it hap­pen and he passed for the col­lege."

Bachue re­called that her son went through tremen­dous odds and it was a very chal­leng­ing time for him.

Pe­nal Rock Pres­by­ter­ian School Prin­ci­pal Ker­ry Ann Ram­nath said Ary­on did ex­ceed­ing­ly well con­sid­er­ing his cir­cum­stances.

She re­count­ed that he was sep­a­rat­ed from his par­ents and sib­ling weeks be­fore the ex­am, he went in­to the ex­am­i­na­tion room know­ing his fa­ther was hos­pi­talised and he was still re­cov­er­ing from a bro­ken hand.

Ram­nath said, how­ev­er, Ary­on was de­ter­mined to make his par­ents proud.

Not on­ly did he shine aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, but she al­so said he showed great courage, strength and de­ter­mi­na­tion by per­form­ing so well.

"We, the school, the prin­ci­pal and his teacher ren­dered as much sup­port as we could to his fam­i­ly dur­ing their dif­fi­cult time. We are very proud of his suc­cess," Ram­nath said.