Valdeen Shears-Nep­tune

It was with nos­tal­gic pride that Ali­cia Ward re­count­ed the last two years of her life."Oh, it's too much, I am hap­py and sad at the same time," she said dur­ing an in­ter­view last Tues­day, the day the re­sults of the 2016 SEA were re­leased to schools through­out the na­tion.

No, Ward is not one of the thou­sands of anx­ious par­ents who, since May, were wait­ing with bat­ed breath on the re­sults of the an­nu­al ex­am.

Ac­tu­al­ly, she is the next best thing, hav­ing guid­ed, taught and moth­ered the class of 24 girls from the St Charles Tu­na­puna RC School. So much so that on Tues­day, the school at­tained 22 full pass­es from the 24 stu­dents in Ward's Stan­dard Five class.

Ward's pride and joy comes from her pupils' achieve­ments. Her sad­ness stems from the fact that her pupils, whom she has shared a close bond with over the last two years, are now mov­ing on.

Ward would be the first to tell any­one that "her pump­kins" were ground­ed and pre­pared from the time they en­tered the school some sev­en years ago.

"I sim­ply took that which was al­ready present and pol­ished it in­to what was the fi­nal phase of their pri­ma­ry ed­u­ca­tion," rea­soned Ward, a teacher for 15 years.

Over­all, the school's three Stan­dard Five class­es ex­celled at this year's ex­am.Ward, who re­called sit­ting with the oth­er two class teach­ers and plan­ning the roll out of the cur­ricu­lum, al­so firm­ly be­lieves that the suc­cess of any school weighs heav­i­ly on its lead­er­ship. She cred­it­ed the school's achieve­ment on the strong, as­tute guid­ance of its prin­ci­pal, Michelle Lum Young.

Ward said it was hard not to fol­low the high stan­dards she had set be­fore her, as the school is big on reg­u­lar­i­ty and punc­tu­al­i­ty.She be­lieves the stage has al­so been set and the foun­da­tion laid for the pupils' tran­si­tion from pri­ma­ry to sec­ondary school life.

Ward al­so ex­tend­ed ku­dos to the school's se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer, Miss Pierre, who of­ten act­ed as the pupils' sur­ro­gate grand­moth­er, hav­ing helped to nur­ture and pro­tect most of them and watch them grow since age five.

Ward, though, was very vo­cal about the lack of na­tion­al val­i­da­tion for schools deemed out­side the "top 200." This, she said, is a sen­ti­ment shared by oth­er schools na­tion­wide. Of­ten, she not­ed, it was the "last picked" pri­ma­ry schools that pro­duced great suc­cess sto­ries, which went un­recog­nised.

Ac­cord­ing to Ward, val­i­da­tion forher and oth­er staff mem­bers at St Charles Tu­na­puna RC comes not in pub­lic recog­ni­tion, but in striv­ing for con­tin­ued ex­cel­lence.

Just how did they do it?

Ward said at the be­gin­ning of Stan­dard Four, ap­pre­hen­sion and fear gave way to re­spect­ful ac­cep­tance.A study timetable was de­vel­oped from the on­set, dai­ly and week­ly re­vi­sions and col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly on school projects, with one gold­en rule...no group was to have any best friends.

Lessons start­ed the sec­ond term dur­ing Stan­dard Four and de­vel­oped in­to three days a week, and on Sat­ur­days from 10 am to 2 pm, right up un­til SEA.Meet­ing with par­ents was al­so high on Ward's agen­da, this was aside from the meet­ings every term set by the school's ad­min­is­tra­tion.

While this may sound omi­nous to some par­ents, for Ward this could have meant dis­cus­sions on the child's de­vel­op­ment or sim­ply just to say "Thank you for your sup­port."

Ward is big on parental sup­port, as to date, she still seeks out the same from her par­ents, even though she is the el­dest of nine off­spring.

The hold­er of an Un­der­grad­u­ate and Mas­ters De­gree in Ed­u­ca­tion from UWI, Ward said she al­so utilised peer tu­tor­ing and would of­ten have the strongest pupils as­sist those with chal­lenges.

"The in­tro­duc­tion of the Con­tin­u­ous As­sess­ment Com­po­nent (CAC) made it a bit chal­leng­ing as the syl­labus for maths and lan­guage arts did not change. It cer­tain­ly re­quired a greater lev­el of or­gan­i­sa­tion," she added.

For the moth­er of one, this of­ten meant long week­ends work­ing and of­ten prep­ping in­to the wee hours of the morn­ing.

Last year Ju­ly al­so saw her oc­cu­pied with prepar­ing them for what she con­sid­ers now the best as­sess­ment tool for ed­u­ca­tion­al eval­u­a­tion, un­til the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry can find al­ter­na­tive and non-sub­jec­tive means. Ward al­so en­sured that she en­gaged her young charges in mean­ing­ful ac­tiv­i­ties every sin­gle time she stood be­fore them. As for dis­trac­tions, she prides her­self in us­ing it as fod­der for fur­ther dis­cus­sions.

The Amer­i­can cul­ture, she said, ap­pears to have tak­en over among chil­dren, but when her pupils' at­ten­tion veered to­wards this, she quick­ly re­mind­ed them of the im­por­tance of know­ing their own coun­try first.She at­trib­uted quick wits in her abil­i­ty to be a step ahead of quick think­ing young minds.

Her pupils didn't al­ways give 100 per cent, she re­called, but be­cause they were aware that she was prone to call­ing on them dai­ly, they pre­pared.

Ward as­sured she would not lose touch with the class of 2016, which had touched her life in so many ways.

The place­ments

Nine at Bish­ops Anstey East, two at St Joseph's Con­vent (St Joseph), one at St Joseph's Con­vent (Port-of-Spain), one at St Georges, three at Caribbean Union Col­lege, one at St Fran­cois Girls, one at Holy Name Con­vent, two at El Do­ra­do West and one at El Do­ra­do East. An­oth­er pupil will start class­es at the Tu­na­puna Sec­ondary, one will at­tend the St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary, while the oth­er will go to Aranguez Sec­ondary.