Top girl ‘got on with it’

Due to a lot of hard work and prayer, Adriel Bayrd will not only be going to her school of choice, Harrison College but she has been designated the island’s top girl.

The 10-year-old student of St Gabriel’s Primary School received a total of 242.43,  an ‘A’ in Composition and 100 per cent in Mathematics in this year’s Common Entrance also known as the 11-plus examination.

“I am very happy and I feel like I went into that examination and I did what I wanted to do,” said Bayrd.

In order to focus on her studies, she was encouraged to drop two of her five extracurricular activities. She is involved in ballet, jazz, guitar lessons, swimming and chess but sacrificed by only making time for ballet, jazz and guitar lessons during her study period.

Adriel Bayrd

Bayrd said she was excited to be attending school with her friends, Joshua Connell and Summer Franklin. Connell ranked fourth in the top performers with a score of 241.71 and a B in Composition, meanwhile, Franklin achieved a perfect score in Mathematics.

“I am very happy that we are getting the marks that we hoped to get and I am happy that my friends, Joshua and Summer, and everyone who got high marks… are all going to the schools that God meant for them to go,” she added.

Bayrd’s mother, Ronaele Dathorne-Byard said she was “very proud” of her daughter who worked extremely hard over the last couple months. “She put her mind to it and really got on with it… She has to come to the point of deciding it is time for her to buckle down and we learnt that about her with this exam,” Dathorne-Byard shared.

“We prayed, and we asked [God] to let her do her best and we kept reminding her that regardless of what the result was once she had done her best… that we would be happy and satisfied with that,” she continued.

Angela Blackett, principal of the St Gabriel’s School revealed that Bayrd has been a model student and “consistently a high achiever” during her tenure at St Gabriel’s School. Acknowledging the achievements of her four top students, Adriel Bayrd, Joshua Connell, Summer Franklin and Kris Highland, Blackett noted that the school has consistently been in the top 10 over the past five years.

“The secret of our success, if you want to call it a secret, is that we encourage children to remain balanced throughout. It is not purely academic, they must find something else that they like to do that will cause them to de-stress during times of stress,” Blackett said, adding, “We know the work towards Common Entrance is demanding at best so we encourage them to work towards finding something that they like to do, whether it be sports, art or drama which encourage the children to have some other outlet other than academics.”