Bay Primary students get examination kits

WITH thousands of children all across the island taking a step today which will dictate their trajectory for the next few years, students of Bay Primary will be walking into their examination rooms armed to the teeth. That is because that school’s students sitting today’s Barbados Secondary Schools’ Entrance Examination were presented with examination kits by Minister of Maritime Affairs and the Blue Economy and Parliamentary Representative for the area, Kirk Humphrey.

During yesterday’s presentation at the school, Minister Humphrey told the students that he understood that some of them may be nervous and excited, but asked them to do their best. With this year’s crop of students expected to go down in local history as first to have to complete the examination during a pandemic, Humphrey noted that the children needed to know just how special they are.

“I think it is important for you all to realise that you really are special, because I think that many people did not have the kind of commitments that you had during COVID because you still had to turn up for school. You still had to log in and you still had homework, you still had to go to class. It’s okay if it was challenging. COVID was a challenging time for everyone,” he said.

Going on to commend the principal, teachers and parents for the work they had done to ready the students for today and the rest of their lives, Minister Humphrey urged the youngsters to be proud of their school.

“I want you to know something. You may not know this now, but in a few years you will talk so kindly of your school. Anybody who has left a primary school will remember their primary school for the rest of their lives. It doesn’t really matter where you want to go. The truth is, wherever you go, whichever school you pass for, you just have to go there and give 100%, do your best and make sure you make your school proud, make your family proud, make your community proud. I am already proud.”

Reminding them that their futures were not determined by the examination, Humphrey reminded the children to hold their heads up always.

“This is just a step, but you have to work consistently hard every day after tomorrow to make something of yourself. I believe that each of you can go on to do something amazing with your own life. I went to Wilkie Cumberbatch, which is a school in the Pine. At the time, many people said all kinds of things about people who lived in the Pine, as some people say things about people who come from Brittons Hill and Bayland. People judge people. But I know you are good children,” he said. (MP)