St Philip Primary students shine in Common Entrance results

Three students from St Philip Primary have delivered standout performances in this year’s Barbados Secondary School Entrance Examination, challenging perceptions about one of the island’s rural schools and highlighting months of disciplined preparation.

The Church Village school’s top student and top girl, 11-year-old Mashayla Layne, scored 95 in Mathematics and 85 in English and will attend Queen’s College in September.

The aspiring lawyer told Barbados TODAY she was proud of her performance, particularly after the sacrifices she made to prepare for the examination.

“Our teacher made us skip breaks to prepare us,” she said of her Class Four teacher, Sonia Marshall-Bushell.

Layne also credited her parents for supporting her throughout the process.

“My parents encouraged me to do well.”

Marshall-Bushell said preparing for the examination required commitment from both teacher and students, with everyone giving up personal time to achieve their goals.

“I did a lot of differentiated instructions because we know that children are all different, they’re all individuals. I introduced them to lots of problem-solving strategies. We also did lots of practical activities. I believe in the whole child so I did not deprive them of games, lunch time and so on, but I must admit they did give up some of their vacations.”

The teacher said she was especially proud because St Philip Primary is often overlooked:

“It is seen as a no-brand-name school, we find that lot of people bypass this school and head to other schools in St Philip, but this was an opportunity to show that great things can come from St Philip.”

She said the entire class of 16 performed above expectations: “Even the children who were a little bit weaker than the others, I found that they did really well. They managed to gain marks above 50 per cent, for that I was elated.”

Among the class were two 10-year-old early sitters who also performed strongly.

Kaiden Young, who hopes to become a doctor, scored 91 in Mathematics and will also attend Queen’s College.

“I thought that I could have done better,” he said, despite giving up his holidays and attending extra lessons to prepare.

Fellow early sitter Sunjay Mottley, who will attend Harrison College, said she was pleased with her results but felt she could have performed even better.

“I had an 89 in mathematics and 81 in grammar; I could have fixed mistakes.”

Mottley, who wants to be a lawyer, veterinarian and cosmetologist, said she was nervous before the examination, despite feeling well prepared, and encouraged next year’s candidates to study hard and prepare thoroughly.

Principal Pamaletta Bhamjee praised Marshall-Bushell for her dedication, saying the teacher gave up breaks, holidays and weekends to ensure her students were fully prepared.

“The national mean for English this year is 64.2, and we achieved 67 per cent for English. The national mean for Maths is 58, and we achieved 66.6. So you can see Mrs Marshall-Bushell did an excellent job.”

Bhamjee also credited the Payce Digital reading programme, based at Haggatt Hall, with helping to improve the school’s reading performance.

“We have evenings for the Infants, and we also have evenings for the Junior department and that has encouraged reading among the children, much more reading. The ladies at Payce Digital are very creative, so on the final meet, one of them actually wrote a story that she read to the children, which they thoroughly enjoyed.”

The Level Up Reading Club provided funding to buy books for the school’s students and also supported its athletics programme.

The principal also acknowledged the education ministry’s transformation initiatives, including teacher training and literacy resources such as Snappy Sounds, Jolly Phonics, and other teaching materials that teachers had found invaluable.

In addition, the school received a reading teacher for the Junior Department for the first time to assist struggling readers.

“I find that has done a lot to raise the self-esteem of the children, and once they have that help and they realise they actually can read, it will make a difference to how they approach their work overall because they’re several reading subjects to reading in order to make a success of your life.”

For Bhamjee, who will retire this year after more than 40 years in education, the results are a fitting way to end her career, demonstrating that with dedicated teachers, supportive community partners and determined students, St Philip Primary can compete with the best schools on the island.

(LG)