Ameer Has­sanali loves hunt­ing, but when he saw his daugh­ter Sumayyah Has­sanali strug­gling with Math­e­mat­ics, he aban­doned his hob­by, took time off from work and be­gan help­ing her.

Their study time to­geth­er not on­ly strength­ened their bonds but en­sured suc­cess, as Sumayyah yes­ter­day passed for her first choice school – AS­JA Girls’ Col­lege.

Hug­ging each oth­er out­side the San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School on Fri­day, Ameer said she scored 92 per cent in Maths. How­ev­er, he said the pan­dem­ic had tak­en a toll on her men­tal­ly, as she had missed so­cial­is­ing with her friends.

“One day she got so up­set and told us she was fed-up with on­line school and that she missed her friends. My wife and I had to sit down with her and tell her that soon, the pan­dem­ic will be over and she will get to see them again,” he re­called.

Ameer said they set up Zoom meet­ings with her class­mates and or­gan­ised lit­tle play­dates so she could de-stress as she en­gaged in her SEA stud­ies. 

He praised Stan­dard Five teach­ers Shaz­ara Mo­hammed and Ims­haz Ho­sein for work­ing ex­tra hours to sup­port their pupils.

“The teach­ers, es­pe­cial­ly Miss Shaz­ara Mo­hammed, were there help­ing the stu­dents, will­ing­ly giv­ing up their time af­ter school hours. Be­cause of their sac­ri­fice, Sumayyah did so well,” he added. 

Mean­while, Ho­sein said the school did bet­ter than last year and they re­ward­ed the top 14 pupils with tro­phies. Pupil Haala Khan placed first in the school.

Is­abel­la Bethelmy, who placed sec­ond at the school, said she was hap­py that she passed for her first choice. Her moth­er, Dr Vanes­sa Har­ry, hugged her, say­ing she had worked hard to achieve her top grades, which earned her a place at Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School.

Mean­while, Stan­dard five teacher Ims­haz Ho­sein said he was al­so pleased with the pupils’ per­for­mance.

“The re­sults at San Fer­nan­do TML were ex­treme­ly good this year, giv­en the dif­fi­cul­ties of COVID. This class was on­line for the ma­jor­i­ty of SEA prepa­ra­tion and we are proud of our stu­dents,” Ho­sein said.

At the San Fer­nan­do AS­JA Pri­ma­ry School, Al­liana Ali hugged her par­ents, Lind­say and Im­ti­az Ali, as they walked out of the school. Lind­say said they were hap­py to get their grades on­line this year, al­though it took a while to ac­cess it.

Mean­while, at Cedar Grove Pri­vate School, the wife of crick­eter and coach Samuel Badree cel­e­brat­ed with their daugh­ter Sama­ra, who al­so at­tained her first choice.

“I am ex­cit­ed for her. It has been tough for the kids, Cedar Grove did ex­cel­lent­ly,” Sta­cy Badree said.

An­oth­er pupil, Bradley Gopeesingh, was al­so hap­py.

“I wasn’t ex­pect­ing to pass for Naps, that was my dream. I am very hap­py. I got a Playsta­tion 5 and a phone al­ready so I don’t want any­thing else,” he said. 

Cedar Grove prin­ci­pal Sha­heed Al­la­ham said he was pleased with the grades.

“This year our re­sults were ex­cel­lent. We had 25 stu­dents writ­ing ex­ams, 19 get­ting first and sec­ond choice,” he added. 

He im­plored par­ents to con­tin­ue to work with their chil­dren.

“It does not mat­ter which school you passed for, if you work dili­gent­ly, you will reap suc­cess,” he said. (RDS)