…pupils, parents get ready to enjoy Easter

THOUSANDS of children completed this year’s National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) on Thursday afternoon and are well prepared to enjoy themselves during the Easter weekend.

Seeking to spread cheer to some children following the culmination of the NGSA on Thursday afternoon, Minister of Education, Dr. Nicolette Henry, and a team from the Ministry of Education (MoE), fanned out to several schools across Georgetown. Here, they interacted with the children and gifted them kites.

“It is intended to reward the students in a simple way after all the hard work,” the minister explained. “It’s years of studying at the primary level and so you get to write your Grade Six Examination, and for some of them, they are able to get a kite from the ministry and hopefully they’ll go out and enjoy the Easter holiday.”

Some 300 kites were donated in total, to pupils who wrote the examination this year, from six schools in Georgetown. Importantly, the minister also indicated that she has received no reports of any major hiccups occurring at the NGSA during the two days. “What I can report is that nothing came to my attention, and what I’m assuming by that is that everything would’ve gone pretty well or at least at the stage that my officers could’ve managed, so nothing was brought to my attention coming out of the exams,” Dr. Henry related.

The minister also indicated that the MoE will now be focusing on marking the papers and getting the results out promptly. “We’re happy that we were able to get the exams off and we’re looking now to see what the performance was like, get the results out, and hopefully this turns out to be a good year for us,” she said.

Children from the Enterprise Primary School, in the D’Urban Backlands, were among the lucky set who received kites from the minister herself. The sole Grade Six teacher for the 39 pupils at this school, Allison Blenman, indicated she was happy that the children would get the chance to enjoy their Easter vacation, now that the examinations were completed. Leading up to the NGSA, she said that extra work was needed to be done with some students, but it would appear as though many of the children had grasped the concepts taught to them over the years. As such, Blenman indicated that she has confidence that her pupils would have done their best.

“Many of them said that English was simple; in science paper one, they had a few difficulties and Social-Studies paper one, was also a bit difficult for them,” she shared. “[There were] no complaints about the math,” Blenman highlighted too, and in fact, said: “Many of them came out smiling out of the math.”

Before heading home to enjoy themselves, some of the pupils spoke to the Guyana Chronicle.
“To me, it was kinda easier than I expected it to be and I thinking, I guess, I kinda did well,” Sarafina, of the Enterprise Primary School, said. Explaining her preparations, she said that she studied a bit extra each day and for a period, sacrificed outings.

Another pupil, Deborah Leitch, indicated that she felt good about the examinations – with Social Studies being the only one that was just a bit troubling. “Mostly I prepared by getting rid of my phone and mostly by working many papers and reading many books,” Sean Charles, who wants to attend the St. Stanislaus College, said. Charles and Jesani Barton, both from the Enterprise Primary, indicated that the examinations generally went well and that they will be relaxing until the results are released.

“I had to be ambitious to get want I want,” Barton, who also wants to attend the St. Stanislaus College, said. Micheline Alasa shared: “The examinations were great, but Science paper two – it was a little bit difficult… and I feel great about it though it was a little bit challenging.” In preparing for these examinations, she said that she had a lot of help from her cousin, who worked with her particularly in the areas of mathematics and in working past papers.

Over at the Mae’s Primary school, one hour after the examinations finished, few children were enjoying a cricket match in the school’s playing field. Other pupils were lingering about with their friends and family.

Shivali Challu shared that now that NGSA was over, she was looking forward to getting lots of sleep and definitely playing games on her ipad. The young girl indicated that leading up to the examinations, she made sure that she studied regularly and worked past papers.

As regards the examination, Challu related that Social-Studies was the only subject that gave her a bit of a challenge. At the end of the exams, she was joined by her mother and older siblings. Her mother, Ann Challu shared: “From the beginning Shivali was very confident, so I was confident too.”

And now that the examinations were completed, Ann related that she would ensure that Shivali gets enough time to relax and have fun with her family. Another parent, Ramona Lee shared: “It was a long and exhausting journey. Most days it was too much reading, too much notes and too much homework, but I hope it all paid off.” Now that her son, Richard Lee, has completed this stage of his NGSA, Ramona noted that it is time for the entire family to spend quality time together. “The plan is to just stay home and relax… and now the entire family is going to go out and enjoy Avengers,” she said excitedly. For Nikolai Mcklemon, the young Mae’s pupil with hopes of one day attending the Bishop’s High school or Queen’s College, said that all he wanted to do was “play every game in the world”. He related, however, that the exams were “fun”, though few questions in the mathematics examination troubled him.