Jakeem Hall (centre) has the support of classmates.
St. Margaret’s Primary School in Glenburnie, St. John had much to shout about today.
Jakeem Hall, who hails from the small rural institution, is one of the top Class 4 students in the island who wrote this year’s Common Entrance Exam.
Surprised after receiving the news of gaining the seventh highest mark in the examination, he told a Barbados TODAY team, with much excitement: “I was pretty shocked actually. I expected to pass for Queen’s College but I did not expect to be in the top 10.”
He said that he did not have to sacrifice a lot to prepare for the exam and noted he even continued playing outdoors as normal, but stressed that he balanced it with school work.
“My parents told me to focus in the exam, read the questions properly and get through with it,” Hall said.
He will be flying off to Canada shortly to spend a few weeks of his summer vacation.
Hall’s Class Four teacher, Lawanda Bellamy, who was teaching him from Class Two said: “Jakeem was working well from the time I got him in Class Two so I always expected great things from him.”
She stated that she felt wonderful on hearing the results about the tall lad.
For Principal Glendene Hayde, Hall’s achievement is a foundation they can build on.
“I feel excited and I have a sense of hope because we have something now that the others can work on. All I have been telling them in the less than eight weeks that I have been here is that they can succeed, they can achieve and today helps us to understand that it is really true. I am hoping now that what they have seen from today’s success is that they can go forward from there,” Hayde said.
The educator, who said that her teachers work extremely hard, noted she would not attribute the school’s success to the small student body and ease of working with a small number, but rather to the hard working teachers present. (MR)