Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Five months af­ter Stan­dard Five pupils of Rose Hill Pri­ma­ry School in Laven­tille went through one of the most trau­mat­ic or­deals of their short lives, they walked out of the school’s com­pound with broad smiles on their faces af­ter com­plet­ing the SEA ex­am yes­ter­day.

Par­ents, who gath­ered out­side the school in pan­ic in Oc­to­ber af­ter hear­ing of a near­by shoot­ing, as­sem­bled out­side the com­pound once again. But, this time, there was joy and re­lief on their faces.

The proud par­ents hugged their chil­dren as they came through the school’s gates.

“It was re­al good. I feel re­al ex­cit­ed,” pupil Ka­reem Bap­tiste said.

“I’m glad they reached this point af­ter see­ing all they have been through and I am thank­ful for the help of the se­cu­ri­ty and po­lice and the me­dia for putting it out there. The coun­selling from the Po­lice Ser­vice and oth­er peo­ple who spoke to the chil­dren,” a proud grand­moth­er said.

Mean­while, as the clock struck one o’clock in Port-of-Spain, the first sight of the boys emerg­ing from the class­rooms of Sa­cred Heart Boys’ Ro­man Catholic Pri­ma­ry School prompt­ed cheers from par­ents wait­ing out­side.

As the chil­dren bolt­ed out of the school, par­ents rushed to hug and kiss their chil­dren.

Some of the chil­dren con­grat­u­lat­ed one an­oth­er with em­braces as well.

“I feel re­lieved. I just have to say that, re­lief,” Sa­cred Heart Boys’ pupil Josi­ah Braith­waite said with a big smile on his face.

“It’s a big sigh of re­lief. He has worked very hard. He strug­gled through the terms, but he made it. At times, it was a tough task, but we pulled through,” Braith­waite’s moth­er Jen­nifer Thomas said.

Dante Wolfe, an­oth­er Sa­cred Heart pupil, was in an as­sured and con­fi­dent mood af­ter com­plet­ing the ex­am­i­na­tion. He said he was ready for sec­ondary school.

“I’m feel­ing hap­py. I’ve been com­ing here for six to sev­en years. It’s six to sev­en years now. I’m fi­nal­ly done. I’m ready for my long-await­ed break,” he said.

“Even though I’m not go­ing to be com­ing to school dur­ing my break, I will be see­ing my friends a lot,” he added.

His moth­er shared his con­fi­dence, say­ing the mo­ment felt great. Since her son wasn’t wor­ried about his per­for­mance, she wasn’t ei­ther, she said.

Over at Sa­cred Heart Girls’ RC, the daugh­ter of Guardian Me­dia’s Deputy Head of News Samp­son Nan­ton, Kasen Nan­ton, al­so ex­pressed re­lief. She said there were a few ques­tions that gave her a lit­tle trou­ble, but she was op­ti­mistic about do­ing well.

“I’m feel­ing very re­lieved. All the hard work that I’ve put in­to the ex­ams has def­i­nite­ly paid off. I al­so know that my par­ents are very proud of me, and I’m thank­ful for all the sup­port my fam­i­ly has giv­en me,” she said.

Her fa­ther ex­pressed con­fi­dence in Kasen’s chances of do­ing well in the ex­am. He said he made sure to take va­ca­tion, so that he could re­ward her for the hard work she had put in over the past year.

“It’s to en­sure that we can do things to­geth­er. It’s re­al­ly about cel­e­brat­ing,” Samp­son Nan­ton said.

“In the last few weeks, I saw her just re­al­ly take that self-mo­ti­va­tion to an­oth­er lev­el and she was re­al­ly push­ing her­self and I saw the grades go­ing up and up. So I think she peaked at the right time and I’m re­al­ly con­fi­dent that she will do re­al­ly well.”

Af­ter their daugh­ter com­plet­ed the ex­am, the par­ents of Al­isa Rose, of St Cather­ine’s Girls’, pre­sent­ed her with flow­ers and a he­li­um bal­loon for a job well done.

“I feel hap­py that I get to fin­ish it and glad that now I get a break. The ex­am was chal­leng­ing but I got through it, now, I just want to re­lax and sleep,” Al­isa said.

“I know it was a lot of pres­sure for the prepa­ra­tion, so I say thank you to the school and the teach­ers that get them through to this day and the pres­sure is fi­nal­ly over, so I want to say con­grat­u­la­tions to her for com­plet­ing it,” Randy Small, Al­isa’s moth­er, said.

Over in To­ba­go, out­side the Scar­bor­ough Methodist Pri­ma­ry School, pupils said the ex­am went well, but claimed the math­e­mat­ics seg­ment was a lit­tle tricky.

“It was ex­cel­lent, and most ques­tions I al­ready knew. I feel very hap­py be­cause I re­al­ly want to come out of pri­ma­ry school,” Ki­van­ni Lynch said.

“It was good but the math had two ques­tions. I knew what top­ic it was but I wasn’t able to fig­ure it out,” Tara­ji Davis, of James Home School of Ex­cel­lence, said.

“It was good. The math wasn’t easy but it wasn’t hard,” said Zian Sulib, of the To­ba­go In­ter­na­tion­al Acad­e­my.

Mean­while, par­ents ex­pressed re­lief and grat­i­tude that the or­deal was fi­nal­ly over.

“I am anx­ious­ly ex­cit­ed. I am re­lieved as well. I re­al­ly want in this sit­u­a­tion to thank her mom be­cause her mom would have re­al­ly put in the ef­fort…I’m thank­ful that this part of their jour­ney is over and we can now look for­ward to the oth­er part in terms of sec­ondary school,” one fa­ther said.

“I would not want to go through this again, so hope­ful­ly we can look com­pre­hen­sive­ly at how we could ad­dress the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. I hope the SEA will be part of the re­view.”