SASCHA WIL­SON

Im­pressed by the stu­dents’ per­for­mance at San Fer­nan­do West Sec­ondary, the ad­vi­sor to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia will be re­quest­ing that the school be tran­si­tioned in­to a sev­en-year in­sti­tu­tion.

Cher­ly-Ann Wilkin­son, a for­mer prin­ci­pal, re­vealed this at their school leav­ing cer­e­mo­ny at Na­pari­ma Bowl, San Fer­nan­do, on Wednes­day ti­tled—The World is Call­ing, Choose Your Own Path.

Giv­ing an overview of the school’s per­for­mance, achieve­ments, ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties, and chal­lenges over the past year, Ronald Mootoo, in the prin­ci­pal’s re­port, said the 2018 CSEC & CVQ ex­am­i­na­tion re­sults were the sec­ond best in the school’s his­to­ry.

He said 66 per cent of stu­dents writ­ing the CSEC ex­am­i­na­tions in 2018 were suc­cess­ful as they ob­tained ei­ther Grade 1, 11, or 111 with a fair­ly equal num­ber of male stu­dents at­tain­ing pass­es com­pared to fe­male stu­dents.

Over­all, he said, 68 stu­dents passed five and more sub­jects com­pared to 14 in 2014. “To state it dif­fer­ent­ly, the num­ber of stu­dents pass­ing five and more sub­jects has in­creased by al­most 500 per cent since 2014,” he said.

In ad­di­tion, he said in 2018 there were 100 per cent pass­es in sev­en sub­ject ar­eas, in­clud­ing CSEC Agri­cul­ture Sci­ence, Elec­tron­ic Doc­u­men­ta­tion Prepa­ra­tion and Man­age­ment, In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, Food and Nu­tri­tion, Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport, CVQ Small Ap­pli­ance Re­pairs and Elec­tri­cal In­stal­la­tion.

He al­so boast­ed that in 2018, 82 per cent of can­di­dates passed Eng­lish A and 71 per cent passed Math­e­mat­ics, both be­ing way above the na­tion­al av­er­ages.

He said, “I must be­gin by say­ing I am very im­pressed by what I saw and heard here this morn­ing and when I go back to work I will have a good re­port to give of San Fer­nan­do West Sec­ondary School,” said the min­is­ter’s ad­vi­sor as she be­gan her fea­ture ad­dress.

Say­ing she felt as though she was not in a Gov­ern­ment school but a de­nom­i­na­tion­al school, Wilkin­son said, “Un­like those de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools your school would not have got­ten the stu­dents who would have achieved be­tween 95 and 100 per cent. You ex­pect the de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools to do well. They get the “cream of the crop” but for many of you this school may not have even been your first choice. So the fact that you all con­tin­ue to do so well is tes­ti­mo­ny of the great work of your teach­ers, your prin­ci­pal and the an­cil­lary staff.

Wilkin­son ad­vised them that as the world calls to them they must choose their own path.

She con­tin­ued, “When I go back to work I re­al­ly in­tend to lob­by my boss to get an ad­di­tion­al block for this school be­cause the school can­not be send­ing its best and bright­est to the oth­er schools… and they get all the cred­it and peo­ple for­get that they start­ed at San Fer­nan­do West Sec­ondary School.”

She promised to im­press up­on the min­is­ter how im­por­tant it is that the stu­dents re­main at their school to do their A’ Lev­els.