Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

“I felt good and that I did my best.”

Those were the sim­ple words of St Mar­garet’s An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School stu­dent Michael Mur­rell, af­ter learn­ing he had se­cured a place at St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, as thou­sands of stu­dents across Trinidad and To­ba­go cel­e­brat­ed their Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) re­sults yes­ter­day.

While many fam­i­lies checked the re­sults from the com­fort of their homes on Thurs­day night in­to yes­ter­day, the ex­cite­ment was no less in­tense, with par­ents erupt­ing in cel­e­bra­tion and chil­dren re­flect­ing on months of hard work that had fi­nal­ly paid off.

“It was a great ex­pe­ri­ence be­cause we went out there and did our best and made our par­ents proud,” Mur­rell said.

Al­phil Jack­son, an­oth­er stu­dent who al­so earned a place at St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, de­scribed feel­ing “very hap­py” and “proud” af­ter see­ing his re­sults.

Re­call­ing his moth­er’s re­ac­tion, he laughed: “She was scream­ing all over the place.”

For par­ents and teach­ers, the wait for re­sults car­ried its own emo­tion­al weight.

At St Mar­garet’s An­gli­can School, teacher and par­ent Joel Lu­cilio de­scribed the ex­pe­ri­ence as both nerve-wrack­ing and re­ward­ing.

His son, Jor­dan Lu­cilio, passed for his first-choice, Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege.

At St Cather­ine’s An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School in Port-of-Spain, Stan­dard Five teacher Charise An­drews said she was proud of her stu­dents’ per­for­mance af­ter months of prepa­ra­tion.

“I am ex­treme­ly proud of the girls,” An­drews said.

Among her stu­dents, Je­nai Drig­gs said she was es­pe­cial­ly ex­cit­ed af­ter see­ing her sub­ject re­sults and dis­cov­er­ing she se­cured her first choice.

“I was ex­cit­ed, es­pe­cial­ly when I saw my Eng­lish re­sults and when I saw my maths; I got ex­cit­ed as well,” Drig­gs said.

Patrice Nel­son, a teacher at St Cather­ine’s An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry and par­ent, said the mo­ment was deeply emo­tion­al af­ter months of hard work along­side her daugh­ter.

“I feel so elat­ed. I am so proud of her,” Nel­son said. “All the late nights we put in, all the work she did it, paid off. I am re­al­ly emo­tion­al at this time. I am so, so, so proud of my daugh­ter.”

Her daugh­ter, Le­yara Forsythe, said she was hap­py and ex­cit­ed for the next chap­ter.

She added that she is look­ing for­ward to the new en­vi­ron­ment at Bish­op’s High School.