OVER in Region Three, at Cornelia Ida on the West Coast of Demerara (WCD), the Academy of Excellence has been churning out scores of ‘top students’ since it was established in 2011 by veteran educator Latchmin Gopaul.

In 2010, Gopaul copped the Region Three award for “Best Teacher”. This came as a result of decades teaching primary schools in the region, from Grades One to Six. And deciding that she could help children in different ways, she opened her own school to push children’s academic abilities and impart her knowledge garnered over the years.

This year alone, eight pupils from the Academy were in this year’s ‘Top 10’ for the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA). They are Ruth Larson, Shrirish Persaud, Aditya Sharma, Sarah Johnson, Jaaya Shiwraj, Yuvraj Tulatam, Athaliah Joe and Aryan Sugrim. Further, in the top one percent of the country comprising 166 pupils, the school recorded 29 pupils out of the 166.

Latchmin Gopaul, an educator with 45 years of experience, said that she was very pleased that her school was able to do this well.

“In 2017, I had gotten five in the top 10 and 17 of my children got Queen’s College,” Gopaul said. “This year, they did better; they got better positions and I am expecting more Queen’s College students.”

So pleased was she that when she was invited to attend the announcement of the results at the National Centre of Educational Resources Development (NCERD), in Kingston Georgetown, she couldn’t sleep the night before. And when morning came, she couldn’t wait for the parents to give her a drop over; instead, she got up quite early and caught her minibus and speedboat.

Gopaul credits the school’s success to the cadre of young teachers that she has. She related that they are between the ageas17 to 30 years old and said that they are “brilliant”.

“What I actually do, is that I have regular developmental sessions with these young ones so I can tell them what strategies to use,” the educator said. “I’m doing an in-service programme with my teachers regularly concerning the delivery of the content and education.”

For her, the emphasis is on recruiting teachers that have extensive knowledge in the subject areas. And she takes up the task of imparting unique teaching methodologies and strategies to them.

Aside from that, she highlighted that she encourages the teachers to use real-life experiences and relate them to the teaching-learning experiences of any topic.

“If elections are being taught as a topic in Social Studies, then mock elections would be held replete with their own ballot boxes, ballot paper, elections officers and even the ink!” she said.