KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter two years of prepa­ra­tion for the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA), thou­sands of pri­ma­ry school stu­dents across South Trinidad wore smiles of re­lief as they com­plet­ed the ex­am­i­na­tions that some de­scribed as easy.

In San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, ju­bi­lant stu­dents said the math­e­mat­ics pa­per posed some chal­lenges as it con­tained one or two tricky ques­tions. How­ev­er, some ex­pressed con­fi­dence about place­ment in top sec­ondary schools.

At St Gabriel’s Girls’ RC Pri­ma­ry School and San Fer­nan­do Boys’ RC School, the over­whelm­ing sen­ti­ment was one of re­lief. Stu­dents seemed ea­ger to re­lax af­ter months of in­tense prepa­ra­tion and some par­ents ad­mit­ted they were ner­vous as they wait­ed to see their chil­dren’s faces as they emerged from the ex­am.

At the South Park Mall where fam­i­lies tra­di­tion­al­ly gath­er for post-SEA cel­e­bra­tions, Daniel Seecha­ran, a stu­dent of Vista­bel­la Pres­by­ter­ian School, was op­ti­mistic about his per­for­mance and said the ex­am was man­age­able.

“I found it eas­i­er than all the oth­er tests and past pa­pers I did, ex­cept for one or two ques­tions in maths. Oth­er­wise, it was easy,” he said.

Re­flect­ing on the stress of prepar­ing for the ex­am, he said he was look­ing for­ward to play­ing video games, spend­ing time with friends, and en­joy­ing sleep­overs—all ac­tiv­i­ties he had put on hold.

“You had to stop play­ing every­thing. You had to switch on your brain and keep on go­ing. You just had to pray, be­lieve in God, and trust,” he said.

Amelia By­er-Rivers, a stu­dent of Anstey Memo­r­i­al Girls’ An­gli­can School, ex­pressed re­lief that she was past the hard work in­volved in achiev­ing her goal of a place in her first-choice school, San Fer­nan­do Cen­tral Sec­ondary.

She said she had been prepar­ing since Stan­dard Four and the ex­am felt straight­for­ward.

“It was easy. Every­thing in the ex­am­i­na­tion was based on top­ics we learnt in school,” Amelia said.

She ea­ger­ly spoke about her plans to dance, re­sume play­ing the steel­pan, and vis­it beach­es and coun­try ar­eas, as she marked the end of her SEA prepa­ra­tions with en­thu­si­asm.

Palmyra Hin­du School stu­dent Ma­davi Bhi­da cel­e­brat­ed by en­joy­ing Sub­way sand­wich­es with her par­ents and school­mates. Her re­lief was pal­pa­ble as she ex­pressed joy at be­ing free from school­work and re­vi­sion.

Ma­davi said the ex­am re­flect­ed every­thing her teach­ers had cov­ered over the past two years.

Her class­mate, Navi­ta Singh, said she was feel­ing a mix of ex­cite­ment and ner­vous­ness as she awaits the re­sults. She said she had been feel­ing anx­ious feel­ings be­fore the ex­ams and was grate­ful to fi­nal­ly hand in her pa­pers.

She is look­ing for­ward to well-de­served re­lax­ation be­fore em­bark­ing on the next chap­ter of her aca­d­e­m­ic jour­ney.

Brit­ney Sama­roo, a stu­dent of Princes Town Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School, de­clared with a smile: “I have fi­nal­ly got that stress off my head, and I do not have to do any more past pa­pers!”

She said she was con­fi­dent she had done well in the ex­am as she had thor­ough­ly pre­pared, knew the work, and had been vi­su­al­is­ing suc­cess.

“Even as I sat in the class­room and looked at the pa­per, I knew I would pass and get ac­cept­ed to my first choice, Par­vati Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege,” Brit­ney said.

She plans to spend her free time catch­ing up with friends and brows­ing her phone.

Out­side Cedar Grove Pri­vate Pri­ma­ry School, the at­mos­phere was joy­ful, with stu­dents re­flect­ing on their achieve­ments.

Char­l­ize Ra­goonath, daugh­ter of Guardian Me­dia se­nior pho­tog­ra­ph­er Rishi Ra­goonath, said she en­coun­tered one tricky maths ques­tion but be­lieved she solved it. She looks for­ward to re­lax­ing and watch­ing tele­vi­sion.